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1I148-S 


A  COURSE  IN  ARGUMENTATIVE  WRIT¬ 
ING.  By  Gertrude  Buck,  Ph.D., 
Instructor  in  English  at  Vassar  Col¬ 
lege.  i2mo.  8o  cents,  net. 

A  COURSE  IN  EXPOSITORY  WRITING 
By  Gertrude  Buck,  Ph.D.  {Uni¬ 
versity  of  Michiga}t),  and  Elisabeth 
WOODHRIDGE,  Ph.D.  {Yale),  Instruct¬ 
ors  in  English  at  Vassar  College.  i2mo. 
$1.00,  net. 

HENRY  HOLT  &  CO.,  Publishers 

NEW  YORK 


A  COURSE  m 

1  !  ■  (  u(  I 

I  I 

ARGUMENTATIVE  WRITING 


BY 

GERTRIJDR  BUCK,  Ph.D. 

Instructor  in  English  in  Vassar  College 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1901 


't)  o 


Copyright,  1899, 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  &  CO. 


ROBERT  DRUMMOND,  PRINTER,  NEW  YORK 


PREFACE. 


This  book  arises  out  of  certain  beliefs  concerning  the 
study  of  argumentation,  which,  though  perhaps  not 
wholly  novel,  have  as  yet  found  no  recognition  in  the  lit¬ 
erature  of  the  subject.  The  first  of  these  beliefs  is  that 
the  principles  of  argumentation  should  be  derived  by  the 
student  from  its  practice  before  the  practice  is  made  to 
conform  to  the  principles.  In  short — one  may  as  well 
acknowledge  it — a  firm  faith  in  the  so-called  “  inductive 
method  as  applied  to  argumentation  lies  at  the  root  of 
this  treatise.  Such  a  faith  implies,  of  course,  that  the 
student  should  be  asked  to  dissect  out  logical  formulae  for 
himself  from  his  own  unconscious  reasonings,  using  them, 
when  discovered,  to  render  those  reasonings  more  exact. 
The  construction  and  the  rough  analysis  of  arguments 
would,  similarly,  precede  the  formulation  of  any  princi¬ 
ples  of  persuasion. 

Such  a  plan  as  this,  it  will  be  noted,  assigns  to  the 
student  a  task  at  once  more  difficult  and  more  stimulating 
than  that  which  the  usual  methods  require.  He  is  not 
asked  simply  to  accept  certain  logical  formulae  on  the  au¬ 
thority  of  text -book  or  teacher  and  apply  them  to  his  own 
writing;  but  first  to  quarry  out  these  formulae  from  his 
own  writing  and  then  to  use  them  for  such  modification 
of  that  writing  as  may  seem  necessary.  His  duty  is  thus 


IV 


PREFACE, 


doubled ;  but  it  is  also  enlivened  by  the  zest  of  discovery. 
He  deals  not  with  the  dead  products  of  other  people’s 
labor,  but  with  the  fruits  of  his  own  first-hand  observation 
and  thought.  In  his  study  of  the  processes  of  reasoning 
he  reasons  himself,  inductively  as  well  as  deductively, — 
an  issue  by  no  means  inevitable  under  the  old  system. 

From  the  conviction  that  the  student  should  formulate 
his  own  principles  of  argumentation  follows  the  second 
article  of  faith :  that  the  subjects  set  for  argument  and  the 
material  used  for  analysis  should  be  not  remote  from  the 
student’s  natural  interests,  but  interwoven  with  his  daily 
experiences.  If  the  student  is  to  gain  his  principles  from 
his  unconscious  practice,  it  follows  that  he  will,  for  a  time 
at  least,  be  concerned  with  arguments  about  the  probable 
score  of  the  coming  football  game  or  the  fairness  of  a  cer¬ 
tain  examination  rather  than  the  desirability  of  a  high  pro¬ 
tective  tariff  for  the  United  States  or  the  iniquity  of  free 
silver.  Whenever  these  latter  topics  come  to  have  a  real 
and  first-hand  'nterest,  they  may  well  be  used ;  but  simpler 
and  more  intimate  questions  will  usually  serve  better  to 
disclose  the  typical  processes  of  reasoning  and  argument, 
not  obscuring  them  by  needless  bulk  and  complexity  in 
the  subject-matter.  When  once  these  typical  processes 
have  become  thoroughly  familiar  in  their  simpler  aspects, 
they  may  easily  be  traced  through  the  mazes  of  an  intri¬ 
cate  and  voluminous  argument  in  politics  or  sociology. 
Work  of  this  more  ambitious  type,  however,  properly  fol- 
low^s  the  elementary  study  of  the  principles  of  argumenta¬ 
tion  with  which  we  are  here  concerned.* 

The  third  canon  of  which  this  book  is  exponent  is  also 

*  The  sketch  found  in  Appendix  C  of  a  course  given  conjointly  by 
the  departments  of  Economics  and  of  English  at  Vassal  College  will 
furnish  some  suggestions  for  more  advanced  work  in  argumentation. 


PREFACE. 


V 


involved^  though  somewhat  indirectly,  in  the  first.  This 
is  the  conviction  that  the  logical  basis  of  argumentation 
should  be  ultimately  referred  to  psychology.  This  is  an 
old  word  in  philosophy,  but  it  has  not  yet  found  place  in 
treatises  on  argumentation.  The  logical  substructure  of 
arguments  is  universally  recognized,  but  seldom  is  the 
psychological  stratum  beneath  that  pointed  out,  and  thus, 
cut  off  from  its  deepest  roots,  logic  has  come  to  seem 
rather  like  a  dead  tool  than  like  a  living  expression  of 
thought.  Beginning,  however,  as  this  study  of  argumen¬ 
tation  does,  with  the  unconscious  reasonings  of  the  stu¬ 
dent,  it  is  bound  to  see  them  as  they  are,  not  compositions 
carefully  planned  to  exhibit  logical  principles,  but  natural 
outputs  of  typical  mental  processes.  Each  argument  is 
referred  not  only  to  its  logical  but  to  its  psychological 
antecedent,  so  that  the  maxims  and  formulae,  usually  re¬ 
garded  by  the  learner  as  malign  inventions  of  Aristotle, 
represent  to  our  student  rather  the  ways  in  which  real  peo¬ 
ple  really  think.  In  fact,  he  himself  thinks  and  argues  in 
these  ways — he  has  often  caught  himself  doing  so;  and 
from  this  fact  the  abstract  logical  equations  acquire  a  dis¬ 
tinct  flavor  of  personal  interest.  Knowing  them  thus  in¬ 
wardly,  not  as  a  mere  external  imposition  upon  his  mem¬ 
ory,  he  has  them  better  in  hand  as  a  tool.  He  uses  them 
not  gingerly,  but  with  the  dash  of  intimacy. 

Some  explanation  or  defense  of  the  syllogistic  brief  as 
used  in  the  text  may  be  demanded.  The  adoption  of  this 
form  of  analysis  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  brings  into  clear 
relief  the  actual  structure  of  an  argument,  which  the  ordi¬ 
nary  brief  so  often  allows  to  be  forgotten.  The  syllogistic 
brief  insists,  more  strenuously  than  does  any  other  form, 
upon  an  exact  representation  of  the  entire  reasoning  pro¬ 
cess  which  underlies  the  argument,  with  all  the  relation- 


vi 


PREF/fCE. 


ships  and  interrelationships  among  its  various  parts. 
What  is  needed,  at  least  for  the  beginner,  is  a  brief  that 
first  represents  the  argument  as  a  unit,  and  then  shows 
with  precision  how  every  point  in  the  proof  leads  directly 
or  indirectly  to  the  single  conclusion.  This  the  syllogistic 
brief  accomplishes.  It  reveals  the  comparative  rank  of  all 
arguments  and  .sifts  out  those  which  are  irrelevant  by 
virtue  of  its  insistence  upon  the  exact  bearing  of  each 
point  upon  the  main  conclusion.  This  the  ordinary  form 
may  also  be  compelled  to  do,  if  skillfully  handled,  and  the 
more  advanced  student  can  safely  be  trusted  to  use  it, 
having  recourse  to  the  syllogistic  brief  only  in  cases  of 
doubt.  But  for  the  immature  analyst  of  argument  the 
more  explicit  and  detailed  method  commends  itself. 

The  emphasis  laid  by  the  exercises  upon  the  exact  anal¬ 
ysis  of  trains  of  reasoning  and  arguments  should  perhaps 
be  still  further  heightened  by  an  explicit  statement  of  its 
purpose.  No  part  of  the  study  of  argumentation  seems 
to  the  student  more  difficult  than  the  correct  analysis  of 
his  own  arguments  and  of  those  of  other  people.  But 
nothing  is  more  indispensable  than  this  to  a  mastery  of 
argumentation  as  a  practical  art.  The  rapid  unfailing 
insight  into  the  core  of  an  argument,  the  swift  separation 
of  the  essential  from  the  non-essential,  the  sure  recogni¬ 
tion  of  major  and  minor  points  in  the  proof  of  any  ques¬ 
tion,  these  are  the  marks  of  a  master  logician,  or  one 
might  say  of  a  trained  mind  in  any  field.  And  it  is  to 
such  mastery  of  argument  and  of  thinking  that  exact  anal¬ 
ysis  tends.  The  student  should  be  trained  to  it  by  every 
means,  analyzing  first  the  simplest  arguments,  next  those 
with  one  subsidiary  train  of  reasoning  supporting  the  first, 
later  those  containing  not  only  a  secondary  but  a  tertiary 
grade,  and  so  on  until  the  complexest  arguments  may 


PREFACE, 


be  resolved  at  once  into  their  ultimate  elements.  It  may 
be  added  that  the  teacher  should  by  all  means  supplement 
the  arguments  set  for  analysis  in  the  various  exercises  by 
many  others  drawn  from  current  reading  and  conversa¬ 
tion.  The  study  of  argumentation  is  perhaps  most  effect¬ 
ually  quickened  by  a  judicious  selection  of  arguments 
and  subjects  for  argument  with  reference  to  topics  of  cur¬ 
rent  interest.  The  daily  newspapers  and  the  magazines 
furnish  always  abundant  supplies  of  timely  material  for  a 
class  in  argumentation.  Toward  the  close  of  a  course, 
if  the  students  are  sufficiently  mature,  the  complete  analy¬ 
sis  of  such  popular  arguments  as  those  involved  in  books 
like  Bellamy’s  Looking  Backward  or  Kidd’s  Social  Evolu¬ 
tion  may  safely  be  attempted. 

A  considerable  amount  of  oral  debating  is  found  to  be 
useful  as  complementary  to  the  writing.  Often  an  im¬ 
promptu  debate  may  be  held  upon  a  subject  before  it  is 
assigned  for  written  argument.  The  question  is  then 
talked  over  as  well  as  thought  out,  new  points  of  view 
are  suggested  and  objections  raised,  so  that  the  written 
argument  becomes  better  digested  than  is  usually  the  case 
when  put  to  paper  without  such  preliminary  working 
over.  The  writer’s  own  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  debating 
as  an  aid  to  the  study  of  argumentation  may  appear  from 
an  account  of  the  arrangement  of  the  course  as  given  in 
Vassar  College.  The  class  meets  three  times  a  week, 
twice  in  separate  sections  for  quiz  on  the  text,  for  writing 
and  criticism,  once  for  an  exercise  in  which  the  whole 
class  participates,  usually  a  debate,  either  formal  or  im¬ 
promptu.  These  debates  are  not  only  regarded  by  the 
students  as  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  course,  but 
they  seem  fully  to  have  justified  their  institution  by  the 
impetus  they  have  given  to  the  written  work. 


Vlll  PREFACE, 

The  course  as  here  laid  down  is  intended  to  occupy  the 
work  of  one  semester,  the  class  meeting  three  times  a 
week.  It  might,  however,  by  the  multiplication  of  exer¬ 
cises  and  the  study  of  logical  principles  not  discussed  at 
all  in  this  book,  be  indefinitely  expanded. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface . iii 

Chapter  I.  Argumentation  . i 

11.  Inductive  Reasoning . lo 

III.  Inductive  Argument . 26 

IV.  Deductive  Reasoning  ^ . 50 

V.  Deductive  Argument  . 80 

VI.  A  Priori  Reasoning  AND  Argument  .  .  .  .112 

VII.  A  Posteriori  Reasoning  and  Argument  .  .  127 

VIII.  Reasoning  and  Argument  from  Analogy  and 

A  Fortiori . 140 

APPENDICES. 

Appendix  A.  Inductive  Reasoning  in  Modern  Educa¬ 
tional  Methods . 153 

Appendix  B.  The  Relations  between  Inductive  and  De¬ 
ductive  Reasoning . 156 

Appendix  C.  Debating . 162 

Appendix  D.  Unclassified  Arguments  for  Analysis  .  .  170 

Appendix  E.  Unclassified  Propositions  for  Argument  .  199 
Appendix  F.  Bibliography . 204 


CHAPTER  I. 
ARGUMENTATION. 

We  often  find  ourselves  attempting  to  convince  another 
person  that  something  is  or  is  not  true,  that  a  certain 
course  of  conduct  ought  or  ought  not  to  be  pursued,  or 
that  a  certain  result  will  follow  a  certain  action.  Only 
yesterday,  it  may  be,  you  persuaded  another  member  o\ 
your  class  that  Fred  Ostrander  ought  not  to  be  elected 
class  treasurer,  or  tried  to  prove  to  your  father  that  geom¬ 
etry  is  a  useless  branch  of  study. 

If  you  recall  the  process  by  which  you  induced  your 
classmate  not  to  vote  for  Fred  Ostrander  for  treasurer,  you 
will  remember  that  it  was  something  like  this.  You  told 
him  that  Fred  was  unbusinesslike  in  his  methods,  never 
paying  his  class  dues  till  the  last  minute,  not  because  he 
hadn’t  the  money,  but  because  he  just  forgot  to.  And 
then  he  never  wanted  a  receipt  for  them,  and  never  could 
remember  whether  he  had  paid  them  or  not.  He  was  the 
most  absent-minded  member  of  the  class  and  didn’t  come 
to  the  meetings  half  the  time.  Of  course  he  was  popular, 
but  what  was  wanted  for  a  treasurer  was  a  good,  prompt, 
wide-awake  business-man,  who  would  collect  all  the  dues 
on  time,  keep  the  books  ship-shape,  be  on  hand  at  every 

I 


2 


j4RGUMENTATION. 


meeting,  and  know  to  a  cent  just  how  the  class  stood 
financially.  No  man  who  couldn’t  do  these  things  ought 
to  be  treasurer.  And  it  was  plain  as  day  that  Fred 
couldn't  do  one  of  them.  So  your  classmate  agreed  that 
Fred  assuredly  ought  not  to  be  elected  treasurer  of  the 
class. 

This  was  what  you  had  been  working  for — to  make 
your  classmate  believe  the  thing  that  you  believed, 
namely,  that  Fred  Ostrander  ought  not  to  be  elected  treas¬ 
urer.  You  wanted  to  transplant  your  conviction  into  his 
mind.  But  you  knew  at  once  that  it  was  impossible  to 
do  this  simply  by  expressing  your  own  belief.  You 
might  have,  said  to  your  classmate  a  dozen  times  that  Fred 
Ostrander  ought  not  to  be  elected,  without  making  him 
accept  that  statement.  He  would  be  likely  to  inquire  at 
once  “  Why  ?  "  and  until  you  could  answer  that  question 
satisfactorily,  he  would  refuse  to  believe  in  your  con¬ 
clusion. 

But  you  knew  he  would  want  your  reasons,  so  you  gave 
them  at  once  without  even  being  asked  for  them.  You 
had  come  to  believe  that  Fred  ought  not  to  be  elected 
because  you  had  noticed  in  him  certain  unbusinesslike 
habits  and  characteristics.  In  other  words  you  had  made 
these  observations  before  you  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  Fred  ought  not  to  be  elected.  They  had  formed  part 
of  a  process  of  thinking  which  ultimately  led  you  to  the 
belief  you  desired  your  classmate  to  accept.  They  were 
the  first  step  in  the  path  that  induced  you  to  the  conclu' 
sion.  Hence,  when  you  wished  some  one  else  to  reach 
this  belief  or  conclusion,  you  naturally  conducted  him 
over  this  same  path  until  he  arrived  at  its  goal.  He 
might  perhaps  have  reached  it  by  another  road,  but  you 
were  familiar  with  this  one,  having  just  traversed  it  your* 


ARGUMENT  A  TION, 


3 


self,  and  knew  that  it  would  issue  in  the  desired  conclu¬ 
sion,  hence  you  naturally  guided  the  steps  of  your  friend 
into  it. 

This  is  perhaps  a  typical  instance  of  the  process  called 
argumentation.  It  is  the  act  of  establishing  in  the  mind 
of  another  person  a  conclusion  which  has  become  fixed  in 
your  own,  by  means  of  setting  up  in  the  other  person's 
mind  the  train  of  thought  or  reasoning  which  has  per- 
viously  led  you  to  this  conclusion.*  Here  we  have  a 
statement  both  of  the  end  and  of  the  means  employed  for 
attaining  the  end.  The  goal  is  the  establishment  of  a 
certain  belief  or  conclusion  in  the  mind  of  the  hearer  or 
reader.  But  as  soon  as  this  goal  is  clearly  recognized  the 
question  arises — How  is  it  to  be  attained  ?  How  can 
this  conclusion  be  implanted  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  or 
hearer  ?  It  is  evident  at  first  glance  that  no  conclusion 
of  a  process  of  thought  can  be  introduced  bodily  into  any 
person’s  mind  without  the  train  of  reasoning  which 

*  In  its  statement  of  the  end  to  be  attained  this  definition  agrees 
substantially  with  such  as  the  following:  ‘  ‘  Argumentation  is  the  art 
of  producing  in  the  mind  of  some  one  else  a  belief  in  the  ideas  which 
the  speaker  or  writer  wishes  the  hearer  to  accept.”  (Baker,  Princi¬ 
ples  of  Argumentation,  p.  i.)  “Argumentation  is  the  process  of 
proving  or  disproving  a  proposition.”  (MacEwan,  Essentials  of 
Argumejttation,  p.  I.)  In  both  of  these  definitions,  however,  the  means 
to  attaining  the  end  remains  unspecified. 

It  may  further  be  noted  that  these  definitions  do  not  insist  upon  the 
speaker’s  having  previously  arrived  at  the  conclusion  he  would  estab¬ 
lish  in  the  hearer’s  mind.  It  is,  however,  manifestly  impossible  that  a 
speaker  should  be  able  to  conduct  his  hearer  to  a  goal  which  he  him¬ 
self  has  hot,  at  least  in  imagination,  reached.  Even  when  he  wishes 
to  convince  another  person  of  the  truth  of  a  proposition  which  he  him¬ 
self  does  not  believe,  he  must  imagine  himself  as  having  come  to  belief 
in  it,  and  trace  out  the  route  thereto,  in  order  that  he  may  be  able  to 
act  as  guide. 


4 


ARGUMENTATION. 


naturally  leads  to  it.  A  conclusion  is  not  an  isolated 
thing,  which  can  be  thrown  into  another  mind  from 
without.  A  belief  is  not  accepted  by  one  who  sees  no 
justification  for  it.  To  convince  any  person  of  the  truth 
of  a  proposition  requires  that  he  reach  that  proposition 
himself  as  the  logical  outcome  of  some  process  of  thought. 
Hence  it  is  necessary,  if  one  wish  to  persuade  another  per¬ 
son  to  a  certain  conclusion,  that  he  set  up  in  that  person’s 
mind  a  train  of  reasoning  which  is  bound  to  issue  in  this 
conclusion. 

This,  then,  is  the  problem  of  argumentation :  given 
the  conclusion  which  is  to  be  established  in  the  mind  of 
the  hearer  or  reader,  to  find  the  train  of  ideas  which  is 
bound  to  lead  to  this  conclusion.  The  solution  which  at 
once  presents  itself  is  that  of  using  the  train  of  ideas 
which,  in  the  speaker’s  mind,  has  already  served  to  estab¬ 
lish  the  conclusion  in  question.  Let  us  say,  for  instance, 
that  the  speaker  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  teachers 
in  the  primary  schools  of  this  country  receive  very  small 
salaries.  If  he  wishes  to  convince  another  person  of  the 
truth  of  this  judgment,  he  will  naturally  cite  the  various 
cases  in  which  such  teachers  are  poorly  paid,  which,  coming 
to  his  knowledge,  have  induced  him  to  this  belief.  Or  if  he 
has  become  convinced,  as  in  the  previous  illustration,  that 
Fred  Ostrander  ought  not  to  be  elected  treasurer  of  the 
class,  he  will  doubtless  attempt  to  bring  another  person 
to  this  view  by  alleging  the  reasons  which  have  moved 
himself,  namely,  Fred’s  careless  habits,  his  unpunctuglity 
and  irregularity  in  attendance,  with  perhaps  still  other 
disqualifications  of  this  sort. 

This  is  the  most  obvious  way  of  finding  a  train  of  rea¬ 
soning  pretty  certain  to  issue  in  the  conclusion  to  be 
established, — looking  into  one’s  own  mind  and  noting  the 


ARGUMENT/!  TION. 


5 


series  of  ideas  which  there  have  actually  established  the 
conclusion  for  one's  self.  One  feels  assured  that  this 
series  should  lead  to  the  desired  conclusion  in  another 
person's  mind  simply  because  in  his  own  it  has  already 
done  so.  And,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  mental  pro¬ 
cesses  of  all  normal  people  follow  the  same  general  laws, 
this  assurance  is  by  no  means  unreasonable.  Certain 
difficulties  should,  however,  be  at  once  noted. 

In  the  first  place  there  is  the  difficulty  of  exact  knowl¬ 
edge  about  one's  own  mental  processes.  On^  may  think 
he  can  tell  exactly  what  train  of  thought  has  preceded  his 
arrival  at  a  certain  conclusion;  but  can  he  be  sure  that  he 
has  not  overlooked  his  real  starting-point  or  included 
considerations  which  might  indeed  be  expected  to  influ¬ 
ence  him,  but  which  actually  had  no  weight,  ignoring  the 
points  which  were  the  true  determinants  of  his  conclusion.? 
Can  he  assert  with  absolute  assurance  that  he  has  followed 
the  order  in  which  his  ideas  moved  to  the  conclusion,  not 
transposing  or  omitting  or  interpolating  any  .?  It  is  a 
ticklish  matter  to  determine  without  other  aid  than  that 
of  one's  own  impressions.  Further  assistance  may,  how¬ 
ever,  be  derived  from  a  knowledge  of  the  typical  ways  in 
which  other  people  come  to  conclusions.  Granting  that 
one's  fundamental  thought-processes  do  not  differ  essen¬ 
tially  from  those  of  his  kind,  it  is  possible  to  clarify  and 
correct  one's  impressions  of  his  own  trains  of  reasoning 
by  a  knowledge  of  those  typical  activities  of  mind  com¬ 
mon  to  all  thinking  people.  The  science  of  these  typical 
activities  of  mind,  commonly  called  logic,  must,  then,  be 
detailed  to  supplement  introspection  in  our  search  for  the 
train  of  reasoning  which  shall  lead  another  person  to  a 
given  conclusion. 

A  second  difficulty  in  the  process  of  argumentation  is 


6 


ARGUMENTATION. 


also  solved  by  the  assistance  of  logical  principles.  Grant¬ 
ing  that  the  writer’s  train  of  reasoning  is  clearly  and  cor¬ 
rectly  perceived  by  him,  can  he  be  in  any  way  assured  that 
it  is  not  exceptional,  different  from  the  thought-processes 
of  other  people,  and  hence  not  warranted  to  bring  about 
in  another’s  mind  the  conclusion  it  yielded  to  the  writer  ? 
Our  general  postulate  that  the  essential  modes  of  think¬ 
ing  are  common  to  all  normal  minds  renders  this  belief 
unlikely,  indeed,  but  still  not  impossible.  It  can  be  ab- 
solutdy  proved  or  completely  discredited  only  by  a  com¬ 
parison  of  this  particular  reasoning  process  of  the  writer 
with  the  typical  reasoning  processes  of  other  people. 
And  such  comparison  implies,  again,  that  knowledge  of 
the  laws  of  thought  which  we  call  logic. 

If,  then,  the  writer  is  enabled,  by  familiarity  with  the 
typical  logical  processes,  not  only  to  recognize  what  the 
train  of  thought  has  been  which  has  brought  him  to  a  cer¬ 
tain  conclusion,  but  to  determine  whether  or  not  it  is  so 
universal  in  character  as  to  be  reasonably  certain  in  another 
mind  to  issue  in  the  same  conclusion,  he  is  ready  to  set 
up  his  own  train  of  thought  in  the  mind  of  the  reader. 
But  just  here  a  third  difficulty  may  arise.  Perhaps  this 
train  of  reasoning,  however  clearly  and  exactly  perceived, 
however  normal  and  universal  it  may  be,  yet,  because  of 
some  peculiar  circumstances,  refuses  to  be  reproduced  in 
the  mind  of  the  other  person.  Suppose,  to  take  an  ex¬ 
treme  instance,  the  case  in  which  a  priest  wishes  to  in¬ 
duce  a  criminal  to  confess  his  crime,  that  an  innocent 
person  falsely  accused  may  go  free.  The  priest  believes 
that  the  criminal  ought  to  do  this  on  the  general  principle 
that  one  ought  to  do  whatever  will  prevent  injustice. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  introduce  into  the  mind  of  the 
criminal  any  chain  of  reasoning  in  which  this  principle 


ARGUMENTATION. 


1 


constitutes  the  first  link.  If  the  priest’s  only  resource  is 
to  reproduce  the  train  of  thought  which  originally  led  him 
to  the  conclusion,  his  case  is  hopeless;  for  this  train  of 
thought  refuses  to  enter  the  mind  of  the  criminal,  whose 
conclusion,  that  he  ought  to  keep  still  about  his  crime, 
is  founded  upon  the  accepted  principle  that  one  ought  to 
do  whatever  will  save  one’s  skin,  or,  more  broadly,  what¬ 
ever  it  is  for  one’s  interest  to  do.  Under  such  circum¬ 
stances,  the  priest’s  course  is  perfectly  plain.  He  must 
put  himself  imaginatively  in  the  place  of  the  person  he 
addresses,  and  then  come,  by  any  way  he  logically  can,  to 
the  conclusion  he  desires  to  establish.  Perhaps  he  can 
do  this  by  such  a  thought-process  as  the  following:  One 
ought  to  do  whatever  will  be  best  for  himself.  It  will  be 
best  for  me  to  confess  because  the  crime  is  likely  to  be 
discovered,  and  if  it  is,  my  sentence  may  be  more  severe 
than  if  I  confess,  and  at  any  rate  by  confession  I  shall 
escape  the  greatest  danger  of  all — that  of  going  to  hell 
ultimately.  Having  followed  such  a  path  of  reasoning 
in  imagination,  the  priest  is  able  to  reproduce  it  in  the 
mind  of  the  criminal  and  thus  establish  the  conclusion. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  the  best  way  to  find  a  train  of 
reasoning  which,  if  set  up  in  the  reader’s  mind,  will  es¬ 
tablish  the  conclusion  desired  by  the  writer,  is  for  the 
writer  to  note  carefully  the  train  of  reasoning  which  has 
led  him  previously,  either  in  his  own  proper  person,  or 
imaginatively  in  that  of  another  person,  to  this  same 
conclusion;  his  observation  of  his  own  reasoning  being 
tested  and  assured  by  a  knowledge  of  the  typical  logical 
processes  of  other  people. 

The  three  divisions  of  the  process  of  argumentation 
reflect  themselves  in  our  study  of  the  subject.  We  shall 
learn  first  to  examine  our  own  reasoning  processes  with  a 


8 


ARGUMENTATION. 


view  to  determining  precisely  what  they  are;  second,  to 
define  and  either  confirm  or  correct  these  observations  by 
a  knowledge  of  the  typical  reasoning  processes  of  other 
people;  and,  third,  to  reproduce  in  other  minds  our  own 
trains  of  reasoning  as  thus  determined. 


EXERCISES. 

1.  Write  a  list  of  all  the  conclusions  which  you  have 
tried  recently  to  induce  some  one  else  to  accept.  Did 
you  believe  the  conclusion  yourself  1  What  did  you  do 
to  make  your  hearer  believe  it  ?  Did  you  succeed  in  mak¬ 
ing  him  accept  it  ?  Do  you  know  why  you  succeeded  or 
why  you  failed  ?  In  case  you  did  not  succeed,  do  you 
think  you  could  have  done  so  by  a  different  method  ? 

2.  Write  a  similar  list  of  all  the  conclusions  to  which 
other  people  have  recently  tried  to  lead  you.  (Recall 
sermons  and  public  addresses  of  any  kind  as  well  as  pri¬ 
vate  conversations.)  Did  you  accept  the  conclusion  in 
each  case  ?  If  so,  why  .?  If  not,  why  not  ?  Would  you 
have  accepted  it  if  the  speaker  had  given  you  different 
reasons  ?  Or  if  he  had  presented  his  reasons  in  a  different 
order  or  form  ? 

3.  Of  the  three  stages  or  divisions  of  the  process  of 
argumentation,  which  is  the  end  and  which  are  means  ? 
Distinguish  the  relative  importance  of  the  three  as  deter¬ 
mined  by  their  respective  distances  from  the  ultimate  end, 
that  of  implanting  the  conclusion  in  the  mind  of  another 
person. 

4.  Write  an  account,  as  exact  in  its  details  as  you  can 
make  it,  of  the  way  in  which  you  as  a  child  came  from 
your  own  experiences  to  believe  any  or  all  of  the  follow¬ 
ing  facts: 


ARGUMENTATION. 


9 


(a)  Dark  corners  are  not  dangerous.  (Ocj  there  is 
nothing  to  be  afraid  of  in  the  dark.) 

{d)  All  large  children  go  to  school. 

(c)  Flowers  bloom  in  the  spring. 

Cats  scratch  if  you  squeeze  them  hard. 

(e)  Everybody  has  to  pay  to  ride  on  the  railroad  train 
(or  street-car). 

{/')  Birds  sing. 

U)  Roses  have  a  sweet  smell. 


CHAPTER  11. 


INDUCTIVE  REASONING. 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  children,  and,  in 
(act,  that  all  of  us  “  learn  by  experience.”  What  do  we 
mean  by  this  saying.?  How  does  one  leafn  “by  ex¬ 
perience”.?  What  is  the  process  involved  .? 

The  common  meaning  of  this  phrase  is  doubtless  some¬ 
thing  like  this.  By  successive  experiments  with  certain 
objects,  the  child  learns  to  generalize  concerning  them. 
He  comes  to  see  that  some  things  which  bear  the  same 
name  or  present  a  similar  appearance,  exhibit  a  certain 
common  characteristic.  Thus  certain  articles  to  which 
he  has  heard  the  word  “  china”  applied,  or  which  are 
associated  in  his  mind  by  a  similarity  in  appearance,  are 
broken  in  his  presence.  Perhaps  he  himself  has  shivered 
a  cup  by  letting  it  fall  from  his  hands,  or  a  number  of 
dishes  by  pulling  at  the  table-cloth,  and  thus  throwing 
them  to  the  floor.  After  this,  he  may  also  have  seen  the 
servant-maid  break  a  pitcher  by  setting  it  down  too 
heavily,  and  the  cat  smash  several  vases,  knocking  them 
off  from  the  shelf  to  which  she  has  sprung.  As  a  result 
of  these  accumulated  experiences,  he  is  impelled  to  the 
conclusion  that  all  dishes  called  china,  or  all  dishes  which 
have  this  peculiar  glazed  appearance,  are  likely  to  break 
if  roughly  handled.  The  child  has  learned  by  experience 

lO 


INDUCTIVE  REASONING, 


II 


that  china  is  breakable.  In  much  the  same  fashion  he 
may  be  trusted  to  learn  for  himself  that  roses  are  prickly. 
A  single  experience  of  grasping  a  rose  and  having  it  prick 
the  fingers  might  not  be  sufficient  to  induce  this  conclusion. 
This  one  rose  was  prickly,  but  it  is  not  certain  that  others 
are.  However,  if  a  second  rose,  when  grasped,  lacerates 
the  fingers  as  did  the  first,  a  tentative  conclusion  is  apt  to 
arise  in  the  child’s  mind.  Perhaps  all  bright  flowers 
which  look  like  these  prick  the  fingers.  And  this  conclu¬ 
sion  is  re-enforced  by  the  third  and  the  fourth  experiments 
having  the  same  result.  Because  four  roses  have  pricked 
the  child’s  hands,  he  concludes  that  all  roses  do  so;  be¬ 
cause  ten  china  dishes  were  seen  to  be  breakable,  that  all 
china  dishes  may  be  broken. 

Such  a  logical  process  as  this  is  called  inductive  reason¬ 
ing.  The  name  may  be  explained  with  reference  to  its 
derivation,  as  signifying  that  several  separate  observations 
of  certain  individuals  are  brought  to  bear  upon  a  single 
point — the  determination  of  the  class  to  which  they  be¬ 
long.  This,  at  any  rate,  may  be  regarded  as  the  function 
of  inductive  reasoning,  to  build  up  a  judgment  concern¬ 
ing  a  class  out  of  separate  judgments  concerning  its  various 
members. 

This  process  of  reasoning  has  become  so  much  a  matter 
of  course  with  us  that  we  find  difficulty  in  analyzing  it 
further.  Of  course  we  are  entitled  to  say  that  Christmas 
comes  in  December,  because  all  the  Christmases  we  re¬ 
member  have  done  so,  that  babies  cry  when  they  are 
frightened,  because  every  young  child  we  ever  knew  had 
this  habit,  that  all  buttercups  are  yellow,  because  those 
we  have  seen  were  of  that  color.  But  if  questioned 
sharply  what  right  we  have  to  conclude  that  all  buttercups 
are  yellow,  simply  because  a  few  hundreds  which  we  hap- 


12 


INDUCTILE  REASONING. 


pen  to  have  seen  are  so,  we  must  own  that  the  conclusion 
is  by  no  means  unquestionable.  I  have  not  seen  all  but¬ 
tercups;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  some  day  I  shall  see 
a  white  or  a  blue  one.  I  could  not  know  with  mathe¬ 
matical  certainty  that  all  buttercups  are  yellow  until  I  had 
seen  every  buttercup  in  the  world  and  found  it  yellow. 
It  is  absurd,  however,  to  say  that  we  are  not  sure  all  but¬ 
tercups  are  yellow,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  have  not 
examined  every  one.  We  do  believe  this  and  we  have  a 
logical  right  to  believe  it — until  we  find  a  white  buttercup 
or  a  blue  one.  But  the  possibility  that  we  may  find  one 
makes  this  conclusion  of  ours  a  temporary,  not  an  abso¬ 
lute,  conclusion. 

The  absolute  conclusion  may  be  reached  only  in  the 
case  of  a  class  all  the  members  of  which  are  accessible  to 
examination.  One  can  say  ^‘all  my  mother’s  brothers 
have  light  hair  and  blue  eyes,”  with  absolute  certainty 
of  the  truth  of  the  statement,  for  every  member  of  the 
class  “my  mother’s  brothers”  has  been  accounted  for. 
It  needs  no  logical  process  to  enumerate  them  and  declare 
that  all  of  them,  without  exception,  have  blonde  coloring. 
This  is  absolute  certitude,  and  differs  essentially,  as  we 
shall  see,  from  logical  certitude. 

The  conclusions  which  we  have  heretofore  considered 
involve  this  logical  certitude,  which  i?  of  necessity  relative 
and  temporary.  All  clergymen  of  the  English  Church 
wear  vestments  while  conducting  services,  is  a  conclusion 
of  this  sort.  We  do  not  know  all  clergymen  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  Church;  neither  ourselves  nor  our  friends  have  been 
able  to  observe  that  more  than  a  hundred  or  so  wear  vest¬ 
ments  while  conducting  the  service,  but  we  are  neverthe¬ 
less  fully  persuaded  in  our  own  minds  that  this  is  the 
habitual  practice  of  all  clergymen  of  the  English  Church. 


INDUCTiyE  REASONING, 


13 


We  return,  then,  to  our  question,  as  yet  unanswered — 
whence  comes  our  right  to  this  conclusion  ? 

It  is  evident  that  something  lies  back  of  this  reasoning 
process  to  justify  it,  a  principle  too  self-evident  to  be 
spoken  of  under  ordinary  circumstances.  When  we  find 
a  certain  characteristic  in  several  members  of  a  class,  we 
consider  ourselves  entitled  to  suppose  its  existence  in  all 
the  other  members  of  that  same  class,  though  we  have  not 
examined  each  of  them  separately.  When  we  see  that  the 
leaves  on  one  side  of  a  tree  are  five-pointed,  fine-textured, 
and  pale  green,  we  expect  those  on  the  other  side  to  have 
these  same  characteristics.  If  we  know  that  some  chest¬ 
nut  burs  are  brown  and  spiny,  we  cannot  imagine  finding 
others  smooth  and  pink. 

From  this  tacit  expectation  arises  the  principle  *  taken 
for  granted  whenever  we  reason  inductively :  Whai  is  true 
of  several  members  of  a  class  is  true  of  the  class  as  a  whole. 
•Starting  with  this  assumption,  we  are  enabled  to  reason  as 
follows.  Since  whatever  is  true  of  several  members  of  a 
class  is  true  of  the  class  as  a  whole,  if  I  find  it  true  of  sev¬ 
eral  buttercups  that  they  are  yellow,  I  can  conclude  that 
buttercups  as  a  class  are  yellow.  If  all  the  Episcopal 
clergymen  I  know  wear  vestments  in  conducting  church 
services,  all  Episcopal  clergymen  may  be  judged  to  do  so. 

It  is  possible,  then,  to  analyze  any  reasoning  process  of 
this  sort  into  three  stages  as  follows : 

I.  Assumption.  What  is  true  of  several  members  of  a 
class  is  true  of  the  class  as  a  whole. 

II.  Facts. 

1.  This  rose  is  prickly. 

2.  The  rose  I  had  yesterday  was  prickly. 


*  Sometimes  called  the  principle  of  the  uniformity  of  nature. 


14 


INDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


3.  The  rose  I  picked  two  days  ago  was  prickly, 
etc.  ‘ 

III.  Conclusion :  All  roses  are  prickly. 

Before  we  consider  separately  each  of  these  stages,  it 
will  be  well  to  notice  one  characteristic  common  to  them 
all.  This  is  the  fact  that  each  of  them  is  represented  by 
a  proposition.  By  this  is  meant  that  each  of  the  forego¬ 
ing  statements  is  a  complete  declaration  about  something. 
It  is  not  a  mere  name  or  a  mere  phrase,  such  as  “  roses,'' 
or  “prickly  roses,"  or  even  “the  stems  of  roses,"  or 
“  the  rose  I  had  yesterday,"  but  “  This  rose  has  a  prickly 
stem,"  or  “  Roses  have  prickly  stems."  Every  stage  in 
a  process  of  inductive  reasoning  is  expressed  Dy  a  proposi¬ 
tion,  a  complete  statement. 

Let  us  consider  first  the  assumption.  This  itself  is, 
ultimately,  the  conclusion  of  an  inductive  argument. 
People  have  noted  that,  in  several  cases,  what  they  have 
observed  to  be  true  of  certain  members  of  a  class  has 
turned  out  to  be  true  of  all  the  other  members  of  that 
class  when  they  have  been  also  examined.  Hence  they 
have  adopted,  as  a  working  hypothesis,  the  proposition 
that  what  is  true  of  several  members  of  a  class  is  true  of 
the  class  as  a  whole. 

The  phrase  “working  hypothesis  "  should  here  be  em¬ 
phasized.  The  inductive  assumption  is  but  a  rough-and- 
ready  approximation.  We  have  heretofore  considered  it 
only  in  its  most  general  form,  ‘  ‘  What  is  true  of  several 
members  of  a  class  is  true  of  the  whole  class,"  the  word 
“  several  "  being  quite  undefined.  We  do  not  know 
whether  “  several  "  means  two  or  ten  or  fifty  or  six  thou¬ 
sand,  and  we  cannot  know  as  long  as  the  statement  covers 
all  cases  of  induction.  The  assumption  cannot  be  at 
once  definite  and  inclusive.  In  the  general  form  which 


INDUCTIFE  REASONING. 


15 


lies  back  of  all  induction,  it  is  only  a  half-formulated  pre¬ 
supposition,  deeply  rooted  in  the  human  consciousness, 
but  essentially  vague  and  for  the  most  part  unrecognized. 
We  are  all  sure  that  members  of  the  same  class  are  some¬ 
how  alike,  else  why  should  they  constitute  a  class  The 
notion  of  resemblance  is  involved  in  our  very  idea  of  a 
class.  We  regard  things  as  belonging  to  the  same  class 
just  because  of  some  likeness  in  appearance  or  function. 
Then  what  is  more  natural  than  to  take  a  few  of  these 
things  as  representative  of  the  rest  and  draw  our  conclu¬ 
sions  as  to  the  rest  from  the  few  we  see  1  This  is  the 
common  notion,  the  undefined  assumption,  which  sel¬ 
dom,  in  practical  experience,  gets  so  far  as  to  question, 
“  How  many  members  does  it  take  truly  to  represent  a 
class  .?  This  is  an  inquiry  which  belongs  to  the  scientific 
applications  of  induction.  For  practical  purposes  we 
seldom  do  more  than  to  recognize  dimly  that  in  a  given 
case  we  did  or  did  not  examine  a  sufficient  number  of 
members  to  justify  our  drawing  conclusions  as  to  the 
whole  class.  Our  general  assumption  remains  still  undis¬ 
turbed  and  undefined,  that  a  certain  number  of  cases,  not 
too  few  of  course,  does  serve  as  the  basis  for  a  conclusion 
regarding  all  cases  of  the  same  sort. 

So  much  for  the  general  form  of  the  inductive  assump¬ 
tion.  Its  particular  form  varies  with  the  specific  case. 
If  one  concludes  from  observation  of  two  doctors  who 
always  carry  in  their  pockets  candy  for  the  children,  that 
all  doctors  have  this  benevolent  habit,  the  assumption  is 
plainly  that  what  is  true  of  two  members  of  a  class  is  true 
of  the  class  as  a  whole.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  con¬ 
clusion  that  serge  wears  well  is  drawn  from  five  different 
pieces  of  serge,  all  of  which  had  a  long  and  honorable 
record  of  service,  the  reasoning  evidently  presupposes  that 


i6 


INDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


what  has  been  found  true  of  five  members  of  this  class  is 
true  of  the  class  as  a  whole. 

The  particular  assumption  for  any  given  inductive  argu¬ 
ment  is  determined,  then,  by  the  number  of  facts  support¬ 
ing  the  conclusion.  What  this  number  shall  be  we  must 
now  inquire. 

We  must  recognize  at  the  outset  that  the  number  of 
facts  which  suffice  to  establish  an  inductive  conclusion  is 
almost  infinitely  variable.  In  the  cruder,  less  conscious 
forms  of  this  reasoning  one  instance  alone,  if  it  make  a 
sufficiently  vivid  impression  upon  the  mind,  is  often 
responsible  for  a  conclusion  about  the  entire  class  repre¬ 
sented.  A  case  of  such  slenderly  supported  reasoning  is 
the  induction  upon  which  rested  Tom  Tulliver's  “  half- 
admitted  fear’'  of  the  humpbacked  Philip  Wakem  “as 
probably  a  spiteful  fellow,  who,  not  being  able  to  fight 
you,  had  cunning  ways  of  doing  you  a  mischief  by  the 
sly.  ’  ’  *  The  genesis  of  this  opinion  concerning  Philip  is 
suggested  by  the  author  in  the  following  statement : 
‘  ‘  There  was  a  humpbacked  tailor  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Mr.  Jacobs’  academy  who  was  considered  a  very  unamia- 
ble  character,  and  was  much  hooted  after  by  public- 
spirited  boys  solely  on  the  ground  of  his  unsatisfactory 
moral  qualities,  so  that  Tom  was  not  without  a  basis  of 
fact  to  go  upon.”*  One  humpbacked  person  is  a 
vicious  character,  therefore  all  humpbacked  persons  are 
vicious  characters.  Master  Tom  would  argue.  And  in 
like  manner  do  even  older  and  wiser  people  than  he 
occasionally  judge  an  entire  class  from  a  single  one  of  its 
members. 

But  when  such  wide  conclusions  from  narrow  data  come 
to  be  overthrown,  as  they  are  likely  to  be  by  the  obser- 
*■  Mill  on  the  Floss ,  Bk.  III.,  ch.  II. 


INDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


17 


vation  of  other  instances  opposing  the  one  previously 
noted,  one  is  apt  to  say  to  himself, — The  trouble  was,  I 
hadn’t  seen  enough  members  of  the  class  to  represent  it 
fairly.  I  had  no  business  to  judge  the  whole  class  from 
one  member  of  it.  And  the  question  at  once  obtrudes 
itself — How  many  members  of  a  class  must  be  observed 
in  order  to  justify  a  conclusion  concerning  the  class  .? 

This  question  may  be  answered  at  once  by  saying  that 
an  inductive  conclusion  which  is  built  upon  but  one  ob¬ 
servation  is  as  justifiable  as  one  supported  by  a  hundred 
facts;  the  only  difference  between  the  two  is  that  the  first 
is  less  likely  than  the  second  to  be  permanent.  So  long 
as  Tom  had  seen  no  amiable  humpbacks  he  was  logically 
entitled  to  construct  his  idea  of  the  class  from  the  one 
unamiable  member  of  it  that  he  knew.  The  fact  that  his 
acquaintance  with  the  class  was  so  limited,  however,  made 
his  conclusion  concerning  it  extremely  likely  to  be  over¬ 
thrown  by  further  observations.  The  question  is,  then, 
not  how  many  facts  justify  coming  to  an  inductive  conclu¬ 
sion,  but  how  many  are  likely  to  insure  its  permanency  in 
one’s  mind  ? 

It  is  evident  that  a  conclusion  in  regard  to  a  class  of 
things  is  likely  to  stand  if  it  is  based  upon  experience  with 
a  representative  number  of  that  class.  But  what  is  a  rep¬ 
resentative  number  ?  Doubtless  this  would  vary  with  the 
nature  of  the  class.  It  might  seem  at  first  thought  that 
the  size  of  the  class  would  be  an  important  factor  in  this 
problem.  Where  there  are  few  members  in  the  class,  as 
when  one  ventures  a  generalization  about  women’s  col¬ 
leges  in  America,  it  would  appear  that  a  smaller  absolute 
number  of  members  need  be  examined  than  in  the  case 
of  a  conclusion  about,  say,  ministers’  children.  Yet  the 
real  reason  for  the  larger  number  of  observations  in  the 


i8 


INDUCTILE  REASONING. 


case  of  ministers’  children  can  hardly  be  the  greater  size 
of  the  class,  for  the  same  number  of  specific  facts  as  would 
be  required  to  establish  the  conclusion  regarding  the  small 
class  of  women’s  colleges  in  America  would  be  ample  for 
a  conclusion  concerning  the  large  class  of  red-winged 
blackbirds.  In  such  a  case  as  this  last,  although  the  size 
of  the  class  is  unquestionable,  the  chances  of  uniformity 
throughout  the  class  are  more  than  correspondingly  great. 
The  class  lacks  the  complexity  and  therefore  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  for  variations  characteristic  of  such  a  class  as  that 
of  women’s  colleges  in  America,  or,  still  more,  that  of 
ministers’  children.  In  the  one  case  the  points  of  similar¬ 
ity  between  the  members  are  many  and  the  points  of 
unlikeness  few.  The  homogeneity  of  the  class  is  con¬ 
spicuous.  In  the  case  of  women’s  colleges,  however,  or 
still  more  in  that  of  ministers’  children,  the  unity  of  the 
class  is  not  more  marked  than  the  diversities  within  it. 
It  is  a  loosely  amalgamated  group,  united  perhaps  at  a 
single  point. 

In  considering,  then,  how  many  individuals  in  a  class 
must  be  examined  in  order  to  insure  to  the  conclusion  at 
least  a  relative  permanency,  the  homogeneity  of  the  class 
must  be  noted.  Roughly  speaking,  the  number  of  obser¬ 
vations  to  be  made  under  each  class  should  vary  inversely 
with  the  homogeneity  of  the  class. 

But  of  course  it  is  impossible,  except  in  comparatively 
sophisticated  induction,  to  apply  this  test  of  the  perma¬ 
nency  of  the  conclusion.  We  cannot  know  the  degree  of 
homogeneity  characteristic  of  any  given  class  until  we  have 
already  come  to  several  inductive  conclusions  about  it. 
We  cannot,  for  instance,  tell  how  closely  knit  the  class 
china  dishes  may  be,  so  long  as  it  is  to  us  only  table  uten¬ 
sils  with  a  certain  non-metallic,  glazed  appearance.  We 


INDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


19 


must  discover  by  induction  that  all  china  dishes  are  br-^ak- 
able,  that  they  are  made  of  clay  and  baked  in  a  kiln,  be¬ 
fore  we  can  know  just  how  homogeneous  the  class  is. 
Having  determined,  however,  the  degree  of  homogeneity 
possessed  by  any  class,  we  may  use  this  determination  as  a 
basis  for  deciding  what  proportion  of  its  members  must 
be  examined  in  order  to  establish  with  some  permanency 
a  further  conclusion  regarding  the  class. 

The  exact  form  taken  by  the  facts  which  support  an  in¬ 
ductive  conclusion  should  be  carefully  noted.  Each  fact 
may  be  described  as  a  statement  that  kn  individual 
member  of  some  class  has  a  certain  characteristic,  or,  more 
broadly,  that  it  belongs  to  the  large  class  of  things  having 
this  characteristic.*  It  is  thus  precisely  correlative  in  form 
with  the  conclusion,  which  states  that  the  entire  class  has 
a  certain  characteristic,  or,  more  broadly,  that  it  is  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  larger  class  of  things  having  this  character¬ 
istic. 

The  conclusion  of  inductive  reasoning  must  not  be  re¬ 
garded  as  necessarily  permanent  or  as  literally  true.  ‘‘All 
children  are  innocent,”  we  say,  yet  there  may  be  excep¬ 
tions  to  this  rule.  What  we  mean  is  not  absolutely  that 
every  child  is  innocent,  but  that  as  a  class  children  are 
innocent.  And,  again,  our  conclusion  that  “  All  doctors 
carry  candy  in  their  pockets,”  though  steadfastly  believed 
so  long  as  we  are  acquainted  with  no  doctor  who  does  not 
carry  candy  in  his  pockets,  is  at  once  overthrown  when 
we  learn  of  several  doctors  who  have  not  this  delightful 
habit.  We  must  accustom  ourselves  to  look  upon  our 
inductive  conclusions  and  those  of  other  people,  not  as 
finalities  but  only  as  tentative  judgments,  very  likely  to  be 

♦  The  student  should  be  required  to  reduce  to  this  typical  form  each 
fact  used  to  support  any  inductive  conclusion. 


20 


INDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


revised  after  further  experience,  yet  useful  so  long  as  they 
stand.  The  process  by  which  such  conclusions  are  re¬ 
vised  will  be  discussed  in  the  following  chapter.* 

« 

EXERCISES. 

1.  Take  down  from  the  conversations  you  hear  before 
the  next  recitation  several  conclusions  of  the  sort  dis¬ 
cussed  in  this  lesson.  Trace  out  the  train  of  reasoning 
which  you  imagine  must  have  led  to  them,  setting  it  down 
under  the  three  heads,  (I.)  Assumption,  (IT)  Facts,  and 
(III.)  Conclusion. 

2.  Note  in  writing  all  the  generalizations  you  make 
during  a  given  week,  and  set  down  precisely  the  facts 
upon  which  each  is  based. 

3.  Analyze,  as  in  Exercise  i,  the  reasoning  processes 
of  which  the  following  propositions  are  the  conclusions: 

{a)  The  youngest  children  in  a  family  are  always 
spoiled. 

{b)  Bulls  are  enraged  at  the  sight  of  red. 

(c)  Blessings  brighten  as  they  take  their  flight. 

{d )  All  superstitious  people  are  ignorant. 

{e)  College  girls  have  bad  manners. 

(/)  Children  in  fiction  are  unnatural. 

(g)  All  people  fear  that  from  which  they  have  once  re¬ 
ceived  injury. 

{h)  Poets  have  no  business  ability. 

(r)  Rich  men  in  America  are  patrons  of  educational 
institutions. 

(y)  The  heroine  of  the  old-fashioned  novel  has  no 
mother. 

(k)  The  lame  and  the  lazy  are  provided  for. 

*  For  supplementary  illustrations  of  the  process  of  inductive  reason¬ 
ing,  see  Appendix  A. 


INDUCTIf^E  REASONING. 


21 


Q)  Where  there's  a  will,  there's  a  way.  , 

{m)  All  self-made  men  are  egotists. 

{ft)  The  little  vermin  race  are  ever  treacherous,  cruel, 
and  cowardly,  whilST  those  [creatures]  endowed  with 
strength  and  power  are  generous,  brave,  and  gentle. 
Goldsmith :  Vicar  of  Wakefield. 

4.  How  many  facts  are  necessary  to  establish  each  con¬ 
clusion  in  Exercise  3  ?  How  many  to  establish  each  con¬ 
clusion  so  that  it  is  not  likely  to  be  overthrown  ? 

5.  Trace  the  reasoning  process  involved  in  Maggie’s 
conclusion  as  represented  in  the  following  statement. 
Analyze  the  processes  which  have  led  you  to  similar  con¬ 
clusions. 

She  [Maggie]  could  have  informed  you  that  there  was 
such  a  word  as  ‘  polygamy,  ’  and  being  also  acquainted 
with  ‘  polysyllable,’  she  had  deduced  *  the  conclusion  that 
*  poly  ’  meant  many.  George  Eliot :  Milt  on  the  Floss. 

6.  Has  each  of  the  following  conclusions  absolute  or 
only  logical,  and  hence  relative,  certitude  ?  If  to  you  it 
has  only  logical  certitude,  could  it  have  absolute  or  math¬ 
ematical  certitude  to  some  one  else  ? 

{a)  All  George  Eliot’s  novels  are  interesting  (or  uninter¬ 
esting). 

{b)  All  industrious  people  are  successful. 

(c)  All  mice  eat  cheese. 

{d)  The  sons  of  great  men  are  always  inferior  to  their 
fathers. 

{e)  All  presidents  of  the  United  States  are  men  of  up¬ 
right  character. 

{/)  Canadian  roads  are  good  for  cycling. 

{g)  All  women’s  colleges  in  America  require  four  years* 
study  for  graduation. 

*  Is  “  deduced  ’’  the  proper  term  here? 


22 


INDUCTILE  REASONING. 


7.  If  you  wished  to  make  some  one  else  believe  one  of 
the  conclusions  stated  in  Exercise  3,  how  would  you  set 
about  doing  so  ?  Write  a  letter  to  some  one  of  your 
friends  inducing  him  to  accept  any  one  of  these  conclu¬ 
sions. 

8.  Suppose  your  friend,  from  his  own  experience,  has 

come  to  believe  just  the  opposite  of  your  conclusion. 
Let  us  say  that  he  has  noticed  that  college  girls  have  good 
manners,  or  that  rich  men  in  America  use  their  money  for 
themselves  alone.  Can  you  induce  him  to  believe  that 
college  girls  have  bad  manners,  or  that  rich  men  in  Amer- 
ica  give  largely  to  educational  institutions  ?  How  can  you  » 
do  so  1  ^ 

9.  Supply  the  necessary  conclusion  for  each  of  the  fol¬ 
lowing  sets  of  facts,  and  then  analyze  each  piece  of  reason¬ 
ing  according  to  the  form  suggested  in  Exercise  i. 

!  [a)  Alexander  the  Great  had  conquered  Greece  at 

twenty-one,  Persia  at  twenty-five.  .  .  .  Sulla  is  on  record 
as  having  detected  the  capacity  of  Julius  Caesar  at  the  age 
of  seventeen.  When  twenty-nine,  Hannibal  crossed  the 
Alps  with  his  victorious  army,  and  two  years  later  won  the 
greatest  victory  of  his  life.  .  .  .  Before  he  was  thirty, 
Oliver  Cromwell  was  a  member  of  the  parliament  which 
passed  the  famous  Petition  of  Right.  .  .  .  Napoleon  was 
master  of  Italy  at  twenty-five,  the  arbiter  of  Europe  at 
thirty-five.  .  .  .  Wellington  was  an  ensign  at  eighteen,  a 
major  at  twenty-four,  a  distinguished  colonel  at  twenty- 
five.  Halleck :  Education  of  the  Central  Nervous  System, 
pp.  102-3. 

{b)  [Chaucer],  .  .  .  although  .  .  .  born  in  London, 

.  .  .  spent  a  part  of  his  youth  in  the  country.  .  .  . 
[Shakespeare’s]  .  .  .  youth  was  passed  amid  the  finest 
rural  scenery  in  England.  .  .  .  John  Milton  was  born  in 


INDUCTILE  REASONING. 


23 


London,  but  he  was  fortunate  enough  to  have  five  years 
of  pure  country  environment  at  the  time  he  was  entering 
on  full  manhood.  ...  Sir  Walter  Scott  was  born  in 
Edinburgh,  but  spent  a  part  of  his  boyhood  on  a  farm  at 
Sandyknowe,  which  was  situated  amid  romantic  scenery. 

.  .  .  William  Wordsworth  was  born  in  a  small  town  in 
Cumberland,  and  he  passed  the  most  of  his  boyhood  as 
well  as  of  his  later  life  in  the  wonderful  Lake  District. 
Halleck :  Education  of  the  Central  Nervous  System,  pp.  84— 
88. 

(c)  It  comes  with  a  shock  to  many  who  are  familiar 
with  Matthew  Arnold’s  exquisite  and  scholarly  work,  to 
learn  that  all  his  life  long,  while  he  was  editing  Words¬ 
worth  and  writing  classic  poems  and  stirring  the  thought 
of  his  times  with  “  Literature  and  Dogma,”  he  was  earn¬ 
ing  his  bread  by  going  about  England  at  the  miserable 
drudgery  of  examining  school  children.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  was  an  enthusiastic  physician,  and  quite  as 
famous  in  the  world  of  medicine  for  his  contributions  to 
that  science,  as  in  the  world  of  letters  for  his  “  Autocrat  ” 
or  “  Elsie  Venner.  ”  Among  writers  whose  names  are  at 
present  on  men’s  tongues,  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman  is 
a  banker,  James  Lane  Allen  is  a  lawyer,  Henry  Van 
Dyke  is  a  clergyman,  Louise  Imogen  Guiney  is  a  post¬ 
mistress,  John  Vance  Cheney  is  a  librarian,  and  so  on  to 
the  end  of  the  list.  ... 

Literature  as  a  livelihood,  usually,  though  not  always, 
means  something  besides  writing.  The  “something” 
may  mean  lecturing,  like  Mark  Twain  and  so  many  others, 
that  one  does  not  know  where  to  begin  or  end  the  list  of 
those  who,  having  thrown  themselves  wholly  upon  letters 
as  a  profession,  hasten  to  help  out  its  yield  by  the  aid  of 
lecturing  or  reading  from  their  previously  published  work. 


24 


INDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


Editing  is  the  mainstay  of  a  very  large  proportion  of  those 
who  own  literature  as  a  profession.  Charles  Dudley  War¬ 
ner  fills  a  double  editorial  capacity,  on  his  own  paper  in 
Hartford,  and  on  Harper's  Magazine.  John  Kendrick 
Bangs  finds  editing  a  material  help  to  humor,  Margaret  E. 
Sangster  depends  on  editing  for  a  livelihood,  Robert 
Bridges  is  an  editor  on*  one  magazine  and  a  critic  on  two 
others;  George  W.  Cable  edits  a  magazine,  and  Richard 
Harding  Davis  has  found  editorial  connections  very  agree¬ 
able  even  in  his  meteoric  career.  I  might  multiply  this 
list,  for  it  is  a  long  one.  Lowell  and  Bryant  were  editors, 
Bryant  on  a  daily,  that  meanest  of  drudgery.  Whittier  was 
an  editor,  what  part  of  his  life  physical  suffering  would 
permit  any  occupation.  Dickens  and  Thackeray  were 
both  hard-working  editors,  and  the  list  of  British  writers 
of  the  present  day  wLose  livelihood  is  first  editing,  then 
writing,  is  extensive.  Self-Culture^  July  1897. 

10.  Are  you  quite  certain  that  the  conclusion  you  have 
supplied  is  in  each  case  the  necessary  and  the  only  neces¬ 
sary  conclusion  from  the  facts  ?  Have  you  in  mind  any 
other  facts  which  tend  either  to  confirm  or  to  oppose  the 
conclusion.? 

11.  Use  the  facts  given  in  each  instance,  together  with 
any  others  which  you  know  or  can  find,  to  convince  some 

.  one  else  *  of  the  truth  of  the  conclusion.  If  he  chances 
to  believe  a  conclusion  directly  contrary  to  this,  how  can 
you  induce  him  to  accept  yours  ? 

12.  Write  down  at  least  six  proverbs  which  rest  upon  a 
process  of  induction,  and  analyze  the  reasoning  com¬ 
pletely. 

13.  Name  several  popular  superstitions  which  have  an 

*  The  teacher  should  define  the  reader  or  have  the  student  do  so 
whenever  he  writes. 


imUCTlVE  REASONING. 


25 


inductive  basis.  Why  do  certain  people  believe  them  ? 
Why  do  you  discredit  them  .? 

14.  State  several  scientific  laws  which  seem  to  you  to 
be  conclusions  drawn  from  inductive  reasoning,*  and 
analyze  the  reasoning. 

15.  What  is  the  essential  difference  between  the  induct¬ 
ive  conclusions  of  science  and  those  of  superstition  ? 

16.  Note  instances  in  which  (a)  the  physician,  (b)  the 
farmer,  (c)  the  student  in  the  laboratory, ■(*  and  {d)  one 
who  learns  a  new  language,  must  reason  inductively. 

1 7.  Write  out  a  clear  statement  of  what  you  imagine 
would  happen  if  we  were  unable  to  reason  inductively. 
Consider  several  concrete  cases  in  which  the  inability  to 
generalize  might  lead  to  awkward  or  even  serious  results, 
and  discuss  these  results  fully. 

*  The  student  should  be  required  to  take  these  laws  from  as  many 
different  fields  as  possible;  from  physics,  chemistry,  biology,  geology, 
or  from  any  other  sciences  which  he  has  studied. 

Any  laboratory  with  which  the  student  is  familiar  may  be  specified. 


CHAPTER  III. 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 

• 

When  one  has  carried  on  a  reasoning  process  such  as 
that  discussed  in  the  foregoing  chapters,  and  come  to  a 
certain  conclusion  about  a  class  of  things,  he  often  has 
occasion  to  transfer  this  conclusion  to  the  mind  of  some 
other  person.  He  may  wish,  let  us  say,  to  make  some 
one  else  believe,  as  he  does,  that  college  men  are  generally 
successful  in  business.  In  order  to  introduce  this  con¬ 
clusion  into  the  mind  of  another  person,  he  will,  it  is  cer¬ 
tain,  need  to  begin  with  a  train  of  reasoning  which  logic¬ 
ally  leads  to  the  conclusion.  Such  a  train  of  reasoning 
has  already  passed  through  his  own  mind,  leaving  behind 
it  this  conclusion  which  he  wishes  to  induce  another  per¬ 
son  to  accept.  He  therefore  notes  carefully  what  this 
train  of  reasoning  has  been,  with  a  view  to  securing  its 
entrance  into  the  mind  of  his  auditor. 

Let  us  say  that  our  believer  in  the  success  of  college  men 
in  business  has  come  to  this  faith  through  knowledge  of 
several  collegians  whose  financial  success  was  marked. 
“All  the  men  in  my  class, he  says  to  himself,  “who 
•  went  into  business,  made  a  good  thing  of  it.  Some  did 
better  than  others,  of  course,  but  nobody  has  failed  to 
make  a  handsome  living.  Then  there  is  my  father,  and  his 
partner,  and  both  my  uncles,  and  Grant,  and  Tobey,  and 

26 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


27 


Rolf,  and  Stevens,  and  Van  Tassel — all  of  them  are  col¬ 
lege  men  who  have  made  fortunes  in  business/' 

This  being  the  course  of  reasoning  which  has  brought 
him  to  the  conclusion  that  college  men  are  successful  in 
business,  he  naturally  attempts  to  start  this  same  course 
of  reasoning  in  the  mind  of  the  friend  whom  he  would  in¬ 
duce  to  his  belief.  Accordingly  he  cites  each  of  these 
instances  of  a  college  man's  success  in  business,  one  after 
another,  certain  that  if  each  fact  be  accepted  by  the  hearer, 
the  conclusion  must  obtain  lodgment  in  his  mind. 

It  may  be,  however,  that  in  seeking  to  establish  this 
conclusion  in  his  friend’s  mind,  he  will  not  be  content 
with  the  simple  enumeration  of  the  facts  which  have  de¬ 
termined  his  own  belief.  These  may  have  been  very  few 
in  number,  but  successful  in  establishing  the  conclusion 
to  his  own  satisfaction,  either  because  uncontradicted  by 
any  opposing  facts,  or  because  in  themselves  peculiarly 
conspicuous.  But  he  will  not  rely  upon  these  few  facts, 
although  so  effective  in  his  own  case,  to  accomplish  the 
same  conviction  in  the  case  of  his  hearer.  To  the  hearer 
they  may  seem  far  less  cogent,  lacking,  perhaps,  the  flavor 
of  personal,  first-hand  knowledge;  in  which  case  the 
speaker  must  either  increase  very  largely  his  number  of 
supporting  instances  or  furnish  some  from  the  common 
acquaintance  of  speaker  and  auditor.  Then,  too,  it  may 
be  that  the  hearer  is  acquainted  with  certain  collegians 
whose  inefficiency  in  business  matters  is  notorious.  This 
case,  however,  demands  a  separate  treatment. 

It  seems  a  matter  of  small  difficulty  to  introduce  an  in¬ 
ductive  conclusion  into  the  mind  of  another  person  by 
citing  the  particular  facts  which  have  given  rise  to  it,  pro¬ 
vided  no  opposing  facts  lurk  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
other  person.  But  when  the  entrance  of  the  conclusion 


28 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


is  resisted  by  an  antagonistic  conclusion,  drawn  from  facts 
in  the  hearer’s  own  experience  or  observation,  the  prob¬ 
lem  becomes  doubly  complicated.  In  this  case  the  first 
necessity  is  plainly  to  uproot  the  opposing  conclusion. 
How  this  is  done  we  .shall  see  if  we  inquire  how  any  in¬ 
ductive  conclusion  is  displaced  from  our  own  minds,  after 
It  has  once  obtained  a  foothold  there. 

We  have  repeatedly  noticed  in  our  own  experience  the 
overthrow  of  generalizations  once  implicitly  credited..  As 
children  we  believed  that  all  dogs  were  ferocious  beasts, 
because  one  had  bitten  a  playmate;  that  all  stepmothers 
were  harsh  and  cruel,  because  one  in  a  story  was  so;  that 
all  girls  named  Florence  had  blue  eyes  and  yellow  hair, 
because  the  only  two  Florences  known  to  us  happened  to 
be  of  the  blonde  type.  But  we  discarded  these  conclu¬ 
sions  after  a  while,  without  argument.  How  did  we  come 
to  do  so  ? 

To  start  with  a  fresh  instance,  let  us  suppose  a  fifteen- 
year-old  girl  to  have  read  Emma  and  Mansfield  Park,  and 
become  convinced  thereby  that  Jane  Austen’s  novels  are 
essentially  stupid  reading.  There  are  only  two  ways  in 
which  such  a  conclusion  is  likely  to  be  dislodged  from  her 
mind.  She  reads  no  more  of  Jane  Austen  for  some  time. 
Then,  after  several  years,  let  us  say,  she  may  chance  to 
hear  Emma  praised  by  some  person  for  whose  judgment 
she  has  respect.  She  rereads  the  book,  and  now  .likes  it 
heartily.  The  previous  conclusion,  that  all  Jane  Austen’s 
books  are  stupid  reading,  totters  a  little.  Perhaps  she  was 
mistaken.  She  rereads  the  second  book,  also  with  pleas¬ 
ure,  and  the  previous  conclusion  utterly  falls.  The  facts 
which  had  supported  it  have  been  disproved,  and  the  con¬ 
clusion  is  accordingly  overthrown.  At  the  same  time  a 
new  set  of  facts  has  come  to  light  in  the  rereading  of  the 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT, 


29 


two  once-condemned  books.  Each  of  these  books  may 
now  be  pronounced  delightful,  and  the  eagerness  with 
which  the  late  scoffer  begins  to  read  the  other  novels  of 
Jane  Austen  betrays  her  half-conscious  expectation  that 
all  this  author's  novels  are  like  the  two  she  has  reread, 
that  is,  delightful. 

In  this  one  way,  then,  is  an  inductive  conclusion  often 
discredited.  But  there  is  also  another  possible  road  to 
the  same  goal.  Perhaps  the  books  from  which  the  orig¬ 
inal  conclusion  has  been  drawn  are  not  re-examined. 
The  verdict  upon  them  remains  the  same.  But  some 
friend  highly  recommends  Pride  and  Prejudice^  which 
turns  out  to  be  so  delightful  that  Sense  and  Sensibility  is 
attempted,  with  like  result.  Now  indeed  is  the  univer¬ 
sality  ot  the  earlier  conclusion  invalidated,  but  that  is  all. 
It  is  certain  that  not  all  Jane  Austen’s  novels  are  tiresome, 
for  two  of  them  have  proved  most  interesting.  Yet 
neither  are  they  all  delightful.  The  first  conclusion  has 
been  partially  discredited,  but  no  antagonistic  conclusion 
has  superseded  it,  to  make  its  rout  complete.  It  is  not 
possible,  from  the  data  at  hand,  to  come  to  any  conclusion 
whatsoever  concerning  the  whole  class  of  Jane  Austen’s 
novels.  The  mind  can  only  hover  between  the  two  con¬ 
clusions,  that  Jane  Austen’s  novels  are  tiresome  and  that 
they  are  interesting.  It  is,  however,  almost  inevitable  that 
the  later  conclusion,  simply  because  it  is  more  recent  and 
hence  more  vivid,  should  tip  the  balance  somewhat,  and 
the  reader  betake  herself  to  another  unread  novel  of  Jane 
Austen.  In  case  this  proved  to  be  delightful,  one  can 
imagine  the  reader’s  making  some  such  remark  as  this :  “  I 
like  Jane  Austen’s  novels;  that  is,  all  but  the  two  I  read 
when  I  was  little  more  than  a  child.  They  seemed  very 
stupid  to  me  then,  but  my  taste  has  probably  chane:ed- 


30 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


and  I  might  be  extremely  fond  of  them  now.  At  any  rate 
I  am  going  to  read  them  again  and  see.’'  The  second 
conclusion,  that  Jane  Austen’s  novels  are  interesting,  has 
by  this  time  become  so  strong  that  the  facts  which  oppose 
It  are  regarded  as  questionable;  and  whether,  upon  inves¬ 
tigation,  they  prove  true  or  not,  they  will  in  any  event  be 
regarded  as  exceptional,  the  conclusion  standing  in  spite 
of  them. 

These  two  ways  there  are,  then,  in  which  such  a  conclu¬ 
sion  as  that  Jane  Austen’s  novels  are  stupid  is  likely  to  be 
overthrown  by  experience.  And  these  are  the  two  ways, 
therefore,  which  are  open  to  one  who  wishes  to  displace 
a  similar  conclusion  by  means  of  argument.  One,  which 
may  be  called  the  direct  way,  is  by  simply  disproving  the 
tacts  on  which  the  conclusion  rests.  In  doing  this  new 
tacts  will  inevitably  arise  which  issue  in  a  contrary  con¬ 
clusion,  tending  to  supplant  the  original  generalization. 
The  other  way  is  more  indirect.  The  old  conclusion  is 
not  openly  attacked,  but  other  facts  are  brought  forward 
which  compel  a  new  generalization,  exactly  antagonistic 
to  the  old.  The  two  conclusions  cannot  stand  together 
in  the  same  mind,  hence  it  becomes  necessary  to  get  nd 
ot  one,  either  by  disproving  its  facts,  as  in  direct  refuta¬ 
tion,  or  by  setting  it  aside,  its  facts  being  allowed  to  stand, 
but  regarded  as  exceptional,  and  therefore  not  affecting 
the  rule.  The  conclusion  which  is  set  aside,  in  this  case, 
is  oi  course  altogether  likely  to  be  the  one  supported  by 
the  fewest  or  by  the  most  disputable  facts. 

Let  us  trace  out  in  detail  these  two  methods  of  over¬ 
throwing  a  given  conclusion  in  the  mind  of  another  per¬ 
son.  Suppose  the  following  to  be  the  argument  for 
attack. 

“  There’s  no  doubt  that  great  writers  have  irritable  tern- 


INDUCTJyE  ARGUMENT. 


31 


pers.  Take  Byron,  for  instance;  think  how  he  quarreled 
with  his  wife.  And  Carlyle — he  was  a  regular  old  cur¬ 
mudgeon.  Then  Johnson,  you  know,  spoke  civilly  to 
nobody  when  he  was  in  one  of  his  tempers.  And  Tenny¬ 
son  was  rude  to  every  sightseer  who  ventured  on  his 
grounds.  ” 

The  direct  means  of  overthrow  is  not  difficult  here. 
One  can  readily  imagine  such  a  counter-argument  as  the 
following  : 

“  No  one  of  these  men  cited  had  a  temper  that  was 
really  irritable.  Byron  was  high-spirited,  indeed,  but  not 
ill-tempered.  The  quarrels  with  his  wife  are  believed  by 
many  people  to  have  been  almost  wholly  due  to  her. 
And  Carlyle,  while  he  had  the  crusty  Scotch  way  with 
him,  was  one  of  the  kindest -hearted  men  in  the  world. 
Johnson's  manners  were  rough,  but  not  more  so  than 
those  of  his  age.  He  rebuked  pretension  and  ignorance, 
but  always  without  petty  irritation.  And  as  for  Tenny¬ 
son,  he  treated  prowling  sightseers  as  the  most  complai¬ 
sant  man  would  do  who  found  them  repeatedly  in  his 
private  grounds  where  they  had  no  business  to  be,  and 
where  they  had  been  expressly  forbidden  to  go.’' 

If  the  statements  here  made  be  accepted,  it  is  not  pos¬ 
sible,  from  the  facts  alleged  in  the  given  argument,  to  con¬ 
clude  that  great  writers  have  irritable  tempers.  These 
facts  have  been,  one  by  one,  disproved.  Byron  did  not 
have  an  irritable  temper,  nor  did  Carlyle,  nor  Johnson, 
nor  Tennyson.  They  may  sometimes  have  seemed  ill- 
tempered,  but  they  were  really  as  good-natured  as  other 
men.  These  particular  instances,  then,  do  not  prove  that 
great  writers  have  irritable  tempers.  The  conclusion  is 
overthrown. 

But  as  long  as  no  contradictory  conclusion  takes  its 


32 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


place,  tnere  must  remain  a  lingering  doubt  whether,  after 
all,  the  first  generalization  may  not  be  true.  If  these  par¬ 
ticular  facts  do  not  prove  it,  there  may  be  others  which 
do  so.  The  doubt  cannot  be  removed  but  by  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  the  directly  contradictory  conclusion  that 
great  writers  have  genial  and  equable  tempers.  In  other 
words,  the  indirect  method  of  disproof  is  called  upon  to 
supplement  the  direct. 

The  indirect  method  requires,  as  has  been  said,  the  cita¬ 
tion  of  new  facts  leading  to  a  conclusion  antagonistic  to 
that  already  reached.  In  the  case  which  we  have  consid¬ 
ered,  such  facts  as  the  following  might  be  alleged:  “  Ba¬ 
con  had  an  equable  temper,  as  did  Addison,  Scott, 
Wordsworth,  and  Browning.  Goldsmith  and  Charles 
Lamb  were  notably  of  sunny  dispositions;  Burns  and 
Moore  were  careless,  good-natured,  easy-going  chaps; 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  our  own  Holmes,  well-springs  of 
geniality.'^ 

Such  facts  as  these  make  for  the  conclusion  that  great 
writers  are  good-tempered  people,  which  is  plainly  incom¬ 
patible  with  the  conclusion  that  great  writers  have  irritable 
tempers.  One  of  these  conclusions  must  go.  Which  is 
to  yield  depends  largely  upon  the  number  of  facts  cited 
in  support  of  each  conclusion.  Other  things  being  equal, 
an  overwhelming  number  of  facts  making  for  the  conclu¬ 
sion,  “Great  writers  are  good-tempered  people,’'  would 
tend  to  establish  that  in  the  face  of  a  few  facts  leading  to 
the  opposite  conclusion.  In  this  case  the  latter  facts  will 
inevitably  be  questioned,  or  if  allowed  to  stand,  will  be 
regarded,  like  yellow  raspberries  or  blue  carnations,  as 
exceptions  to  the  general  rule. 

The  disproof,  or  the  refutation,  as  it  is  more  commonly 
called,  of  an  inductive  argument,  may  then  be  accom- 


INDUCTILE  ARGUMENT.. 


33 


plished  either  directly,  by  overthrowing  the  facts  upon 
which  the  conclusion  rests,  or  indirectly,  by  establishing  a 
contradictory  conclusion  so  indisputably  that  the  previous 
conclusion  must  yield  to  it.  Neither  of  these  methods  is 
completely  satisfactory  without  the  other;  but  together 
they  effect  the  complete  displacement  of  an  inductive  con¬ 
clusion. 


EXERCISES. 

I.  Write  a  short  argument  inducing  the  person  named 
in  each  case  to  accept  any  one  of  the  following  conclu¬ 
sions.  Before  writing  the  argument,  set  down,  in  this 
order,  the  particular  assumption,  the  facts  you  mean  to 
use,  and  the  conclusion.  If,  when  you  have  finished  the 
argument,  you  find  you  have  in  any  way  deviated  Irom 
your  plan,  as  by  using  more  facts  or  different  ones,  add  a 
second  skeleton  of  the  argument,  representing  it  as  you 
actually  wrote  it. 

{a)  Great  cities  are  located  on  large  bodies  of  water. 
(To  an  inhabitant  of  Squedunk,  who  boasts  that  that 
inland  town  will  become  the  metropolis  of  the  state.) 

{b)  Literary  men  make  unhappy  marriages.  (To  a 
friend  who  has  never  noticed  that  fact.) 

(c)  Haste  makes  waste.  (To  a  companion  who  exhorts 
you  to  hurry,  when  you  are  not  disposed  to  do  so.) 

{d)  People  don’t  give  something  for  nothing.  (To  an 
old  farmer  inclined  to  invest  in  a  gold  brick.) 

(e)  Men's  judgments  become  more  generous  as  they 
grow  older.  (To  a  young  man  or  woman  who  expects 
always  to  maintain  the  present  severity  of  his  judgments 
of  other  people.) 

(/)  All  magazine  stories  are  a  mass  of  affected  conver- 


34 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


sation  with  no  plot-interest.  (To  a  friend  who  recom¬ 
mends  one  you  have  not  read.) 

{g)  Men  can  do  whatever  they  will  to  do.  (To  a  per¬ 
son  of  great  natural  ability  but  no  ambition.) 

[h)  First  impressions  are  untrustworthy.  (To  an  ac¬ 
quaintance  who  dislikes  a  friend  of  yours  at  first  sight.) 

[i)  People’s  lives  are  determined  by  circumstances  over 
which  they  have  no  control.  (To  a  friend  who  blames  a 
criminal  or  a  ne’er-do-well  for  his  unprofitable  life.) 

(/)  Authors  reveal  their  characters  in  their  writings. 
(To  one  who  believes  the  character  of  a  certain  author  to 
be  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  his  writings.) 

(/^)  Failures  are  the  foundations  of  success.  (To  one 
who  feels  chagrined  and  humiliated  over  his  failure  in  a 
certain  undertaking.) 

(/)  Kindness  wins  kindness.  (To  some  one  who  com¬ 
plains  that  there  is  little  friendly  consideration  in  the 
world.) 

(7n)  All  perfect  art  seems  simple.  (To  one  who  objects 
to  Wordsworth’s  Zucy  because  it  is  so  simple.) 

2.  Having  exchanged  themes  with  some  member  of  the 
class  who  has  written  upon  another  subject  than  the  one 
you  chose,  take  the  point  of  view  of  the  person  to  whom 
his  argument  is  addressed,  analyze  the  argument  carefully, 
disprove  the  facts  alleged  in  support  of  the  conclusion, 
or  cite  a  larger  number  of  other  facts  leading  to  the  con¬ 
trary  conclusion,  or  use  both  these  methods  of  refutation. 

3.  Analyze  the  following  arguments,  supplying  the  con¬ 
clusion  when  necessary,  and,  if  possible,  refute  each  thor¬ 
oughly,  stating  at  the  close  the  method  used. 

[a)  All  the  most  illustrious  Germans  of  the  latter  half 
century  have  been  long-lived.  William  I.  was  ninety-one 
at  the  time  of  his  death;  Moltke  was  also  ninety-one,  and 


INDUCTILE  ARGUMENT. 


35 


Jiismarck  was  eighty-three.  Ranke  was  ninety-one,  Cur¬ 
tins  seventy-two;  Mommsen  is  eighty-one.  The  poet 
Geibel  was  seventy,  Wagner  seventy,  and  Liszt  seventy- 
five. 

[b)  A  large  number  of  great  musicians  lived  to  be  old 
men.  Those  who  died  between  sixty  and  seventy  years  of 
age  include  Bach,  Von  Billow,  and  Rubinstein.  Living 
beyond  seventy  years  came  Gliick,  Gounod,  Handel,  Liszt, 
Meyerbeer,  Rossini,  Spontini,  and  Wagner,  while  the  great 
age  of  eighty-nine  was  attained  by  Auber  and  others. 
Dying  at  more  than  eighty  were  Cherubini,  Cramer,  Lach- 
ner,  Palestrina,  Rameau,  Schutz,  and  Taubert. 

(c)  Sheridan,  one  of  the  greatest  of  British  orators, 
who  entered  Parliament  after  a  conspicuously  successful 
literary  career,  so  nearly  broke  down  in  his  maiden  effort, 
that  the  general  verdict  pronounced  upon  him  was 
‘  ‘  Nature  never  intended  him  for  an  orator. '  ’ 

Brougham  and  Canning  were  equally  unsuccessful,  and 
many  of  the  most  celebrated  speakers  of  the  present  day 
displayed  no  signs  of  oratory  when  they  appeared  for  the 
first  time  before  the  critical  assembly  at  St.  Stephen’s. 

Mr.  Gladstone’s  maiden  speech,  delivered  February  21, 
1833,  was  a  nervous,  hesitant,  and  almost  inaudible  effort. 

{d)  Julius  Caesar  was  assassinated  when  he  had  almost 
completed  the  task  of  consolidating  the  administration 
and  dominion  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  his  death  opened 
the  way  to  that  despotism  and  corruption  which  ultimately 
undid  his  work.  Henry  of  Navarre  was  killed  when  he 
had  almost  healed  the  differences  between  Catholic  and 
Protestant,  which  subsequently  rent  not  only  France,  but 
Europe;  and  William  the  Silent  also  fell  when  he  was  on 
the  point  of  uniting  the  Netherland  provinces  into  a  com¬ 
pact  barrier  against  the  encroachments  of  Spain. 


36 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


In  English  history  Lord  Clive  died  at  the  moment  when 
he  was  the  one  man  who  could  have  saved  the  American 
colonies  and  kept  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  united.  And  there 
is  the  case  of  Mirabeau;  he  was  literally  the  one  man  in 
France  who  could  have  averted  the  horrors  of  the  Revolu¬ 
tion,  saved  and  reformed  the  monarchy,  and  so  spared 
Europe  the  murderous  career  of  Napoleon  and  all  the 
devastation  it  brought.  If  he  had  lived  ten,  or  even  five 
years  longer,  the  history  not  only  of  France,  but  of  Europe 
and  the  world,  would  have  been  different.  It  is,  in  fact, 
sufficient  to  say  that  he  would  have  made  both  Robes¬ 
pierre  and  Napoleon  impossible, 

((?)  Note  broadly  in  the  outset,  Shakspere  has  no  he¬ 
roes — he  has  only  heroines.  There  is  not  one  entirely 
heroic  figure  in  all  his  plays,  except  the  slight  sketch  of 
Henry  the  Fifth,  exaggerated  for  the  purposes  of  the 
stage,  and  the  still  slighter  Valentine  in  the  Two  Gentle-- 
men  of  Verona.  In  his  labored  and  perfect  plays  you 
have  no  hero.  Othello  would  have  been  one,  if  his  sim¬ 
plicity  had  not  been  so  great  as  to  leave  him  the  prey  of 
every  base  practice  round  him ;  but  he  is  the  only  exam¬ 
ple  even  approximating  to  the  heroic  type.  Coriolanus, 
Caesar,  Antony,  stand  in  flawed  strength,  and  fall  by  their 
vanities  ;  Hamlet  is  indolent,  and  drowsily  speculative  ; 
Romeo,  an  impatient  boy  ;  the  Merchant  of  Venice,  lan¬ 
guidly  submissive  to  adverse  fortune  ;  Kent,  in  King  Lear, 
is  entirely  noble  at  heart,  but  too  rough  and  unpolished 
to  be  of  true  use  at  the  critical  time,  and  he  sinks  into  the 
office  of  a  servant  only.  Orlando,  no  less  noble,  is  yet 
the  despairing  toy  of  chance,  followed,  comforted,  saved, 
by  Rosalind.  Whereas  there  is  hardly  a  play  that  has 
not  a  perfect  woman  in  it,  steadfast  in  grave  hope  and  er¬ 
rorless  purpose;  Cordelia,  Desdemoiia,  Isabella,  Hermi- 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


37 


one,  Imogen,  Queen  Katherine,  Perdita,  Sylvia,  Viola, 
Rosalind,  Helena,  and  last,  and  perhaps  loveliest,  Virgilia, 
are  all  faultless,  conceived  in  the  highest  heroic  type  of 
humanity. 

Then  observe,  secondly: 

The  catastrophe  of  every  play  is  caused  always  by  the 
folly  or  fault  of  a  man  ;  the  redemption,  if  there  be  any, 
is  by  the  wisdom  and  virtue  of  a  woman,  and,  failing 
that,  there  is  none.  The  catastrophe  of  King  Lear  is 
owing  to  his  own  want  of  judgment,  his  impatient  vanity, 
his  misunderstanding  of  his  children  ;  the  virtue  of  his  one 
true  daughter  would  have  saved  him  from  all  the  injuries 
of  the  others,  unless  he  had  cast  her  away  from  him  ;  as  it 
is,  she  all  but  saves  him. 

Of  Othello  I  need  not  trace  the  tale,  nor  the  one  weak¬ 
ness  of  his  so  mighty  love;  nor  the  inferiority  of  his  per¬ 
ceptive  intellect  to  that  even  of  the  second  woman  char¬ 
acter  in  the  play,  the  Emilia  who  dies  in  wild  testimony 
against  his  error — “Oh,  murderous  coxcomb!  What 
should  such  a  fool  do  with  so  good  a  wife  ? 

In  Romeo  and  Juliet,  the  wise  and  entirely  brave  strata¬ 
gem  of  the  wife  is  brought  to  ruinous  issue  by  the  reckless 
impatience  of  her  husband.  In  Winter  s  Tale,  and  in 
Cymbeline,  the  happiness  and  existence  of  two  princely 
households,  lost  through  long  years,  and  imperiled  to  the 
death  by  the  folly  and  obstinacy  of  the  husbands,  are  re¬ 
deemed  at  last  by  the  queenly  patience  and  wisdom  of 
the  wives.  In  Measure  for  Measure,  the  injustice  of  the 
judges,  and  the  corrupt  cowardice  of  the  brother,  are  op¬ 
posed  to  the  victorious  truth  and  adamantine  purity  of  a 
woman.  In  Coriolanus,  the  mother’s  counsel,  acted  upon 
in  time,  would  have  saved  her  son  from  all  evil  ;  his  mo¬ 
mentary  forgetfulness  of  it  is  his  ruiii.  Her  prayer  at  last 


38 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


granted,  saves  him — not,  indeed,  from  death,  but  from 
the  curse  of  living  as  the  destroyer  of  his  country. 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  Julia,  constant  against  the 
fickleness  of  a  lover  who  is  a  mere  wicked  child  }  of 
Helena,  against  the  petulance  and  insult  of  a  careless 
youth  ?  of  the  patience  of  Hero,  the  passion  of  Beatrice, 
and  the  calmly  devoted  wisdom  of  the  “  unlessoned  girl,’' 
who  appears  among  the  helplessness,  the  blindness,  and 
the  vindictive  passions  of  men,  as  a  gentle  angel,  to  save 
merely  by  her  presence,  and  defeat  the  worst  intensities  of 
crime  by  her  smile  ? — Ruskin  :  Sesame  and  Lilies. 

(f)  A  proper  heroine  has  neither  father  nor  mother 
alive.  She  is  thrown  on  her  own  resources  and  does  her 
skirmishing  or  fighting  single-handed.  There  may  be  a 
brother  to  back  her  up,  but  he  generally  is  an  insignificant 
personage,  and  rather  in  the  way  than  otherwise.  Some 
one  writes  that  from  time  immemorial  the  heroine  of  fic¬ 
tion  “  is  a  noble,  high-spirited,  and  motherless  girl.” 
Pray  you,  look  at  Shakespeare’s  young  women.  The 
motherless  ones  are  Viola,  Miranda,  Desdemona,  Rosa¬ 
lind,  Imogen,  Ophelia,  Helena,^  Perdita;  and  where  is  the 
mamma  of  King  Lear’s  daughters  ?  Juliet  has  a  mother, 
but  as  a  writer  in  Azoles  and  Queries  intimates,  the  daugh¬ 
ter  of  the  Capulets  must  have  been  a  young  person  fairly 
precocious,  rather  hard  to  manage — for  it  is  Juliet’s  nurse 
who  sways  the  fair  girl’s  destinies  rather  than  her  mother. 
The  mothers  in  fiction  are  decidedly  incumbrances,  and 
as  to  mothers-in-law,  the  novel  maker  regards  them  as 
obstructive. 

i^g)  The  recent  death  of  the  Hon.  T.  J.  Byrnes,  Pre¬ 
mier  of  Queensland,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-eight,  draws 
attention  to  the  remarkable  number  of  young  men  who 


4 


INDUCTiyE  ARGUMENT. 


39 


reach  high  places  at  an  age  when  in  more  deliberate 
epochs  a  man  had  scarcely  settled  down  to  his  career. 

Although  William  Pitt,  the  boy  premier,  has  no  rival, 
even  in  these  days  of  rapid  careers,  there  are  hundreds 
who  achieve  fame  and  position  within  twenty  years  of 
leaving  their  books  at  school  or  college. 

Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes  was  Treasurer  General  of  Cape  Col¬ 
ony  at  thirty-one  and  premier  at  thirty-seven,  and  Sir 
Alfred  Milner,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  younger  Eng¬ 
lishmen,  was  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Inland  Revenue 
at  thirty-eight,  and  at  a  few  years  over  forty  holds  one  of 
the  most  responsible  posts  in  our  empire. 

The  new  viceroy  of  280,000,000  in  India  was  a  min¬ 
ister  of  the  crown  at  thirty-two.  Mr.  Asquith,  in  spite 
of  his  brilliant  gifts,  started  the  race  for  fame  slowly;  still 
he  was  a  queen’s  counsel  at  thirty-eight,  and  reached 
high  cabinet  rank  at  forty. 

Lord  Rosebery  owes  little  to  his  rank  that  he  was  in  the 
ministry  at  thirty-four,  and  prime  minister  at  forty-seven ; 
and  Mr.  Arnold  Morley,  still  on  the  hopeful  side  of  fifty, 
was  chief  Liberal  whip  and  Secretary  to  the  Treasury  at 
thirty-seven. 

Among  artists  there  are  many  men  who  have  made 
themselves  famous  in  the  “  thirties.  ”  Mr.  Alfred  Gilbert, 
the  Queen’s  favorite  sculptor,  became  an  A.R.A.  at 
thirty-three,  and  a  full-blown  Academician  five  years  later. 
Professor  Herkomer  was  an  associate  at  thirty  and  an 
Academician  at  forty-one. 

Mr.  Solomon  Solomon  painted  his  magnificent  picture, 
“Cassandra,”  at  twenty-six;  Mr.  Onslow  Ford,  R.A., 
leaped  into  fame  at  about  the  same  age  ;  Luke  Fildes 
painted  his  grand  and  pathetic  “  Casual  Ward  ”  at  thirty; 
Mr.  Frank  Dicksee  became  an  R.A.  at  thirty-eight,  thus 


40 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


equaling  Mr.  Alfred  Gilbert’s  and  Mr.  Hamo  Thorny- 
croft’s  records. 

In  music,  Pietro  Mascagni  was  twenty-seven  when 
he  woke  to  find  that  his  Cavalleria  had  made  him 
famous  ;  Mr.  Hamish  McCunn,  the  clever  young  Scotch 
composer  of  over  one  hundred  songs  and  operas,  overtures 
and  cantatas  without  number,  is  still  a  young  man  of 
thirty,  and  Sir  Arthur  Sullivan  did  some  of  his  best  work 
while  in  the  twenties. 

Marconi,  the  inventor  of  wireless  telegraphy,  is  only 
twenty-three,  and  Edison  was  little  more  than  a  boy  when 
his  name  was  first  known  in  two  continents. 

But  it  is  in  the  field  of  letters  that  youth  claims  the 
richest  harvest.  It  is  the  “  Paradise  of  Youth,”  and  a 
man  who  is  not  crowned  before  he  enters  the  thirties  is  in 
danger  of  going  uncrowned  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Mr.  Anstey  (Guthrie)  was  twenty-six  when  he  wrote 
Vice  Versa  ;  Mr.  Jerome  was  three  years  older  when  Three 
Men  in  a  Boat  appeared.  Mr.  Barrie  was  twenty-eight 
when  Auld  Licht  Idylls  pointed  the  way  to  fortune.  Mr. 
Rider  Haggard  wrote  King  Solomon’s  Mines  at  thirty. 

Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling  was  barely  of  age  when  he  wrote 
Departmental  Ditties,  and  his  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills 
appeared  at  twenty-two.  Mr.  Israel  Zangwill  did  his  best 
work,  in  the  Children  of  the  Ghetto,  when  he  was  twenty- 
eight.  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  wrote  the  Time  Machine,  the 
pioneer  of  his  popular  novels,  when  he  was  twenty-nine. 
Mr.  Crockett  was  three  years  over  the  thirty  limit  when 
The  Stickit  Minister  inspired  him  to  try  fiction. 

Mr.  Quiller  Couch  wrote  Dead  Man  s  Rock  at  twenty- 
four,  and  Mr.  Morley  Roberts  had  been  through  a  world 
of  adventures  before  he  closed  his  “  twenties.” 

London  Daily  Mail. 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT, 


41 


[h)  An  institution  is  the  lengthened  shadow  of  one 
man  ;  as,  Monachism,  of  the  Hermit  Antony;  the  Refor-I 
mation,  of  Luther  ;  Quakerism,  of  Fox  ;  Methodism,  of 
Wesley;  Abolition,  of  Clarkson. — Emerson:  Essays,  First 
Series,  Self-Reliance. 

(z’)  Pythagoras  was  misunderstood,  and  Socrates,  andi 
Jesus,  and  Luther,  and  Copernicus,  and  Galileo,  and  I 
Newton,  and  every  pure  and  wise  spirit  that  ever  took^ 
flesh.  To  be  great  is  to  be  misunderstood. — Emerson  r  . 
Essays,  First  Series,  Self-Reliance. 

(j)  A  Stage  whisper  following  a  loud  tone,  a  sour  taste 
succeeding  a  sweet  one,  the  charm  of  the  country  to  a 
city  child,  the  buds  and  blossoms  of  spring  when  they 
first  clothe  the  barren  branches,  claim  a  special  hold  on 
the  attention.  Often  we  do  not  notice  the  foul  air  in  a 
room  where  we  have  long  been  sitting  ;  but  some  one 
coming  in  from  the  fresh  out-of-doors  immediately  opens 
a  window.  Gentle  speech  and  refined  surroundings  seem 
to  us  a  matter  of  course  until  we  have  been  jarred  by  un-  * 
couth  accents  and  quarrelsome  tones,  outraged  by  glar¬ 
ing  colors  and  inharmonious  lines. 

(k)  Polarity,  or  action  and  reaction,  we  meet  in  every 
part  of  nature;  in  darkness  and  light;  in  heat  and  cold  ; 
in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  waters;  in  male  and  female;  in  the 
inspiration  and  expiration  of  plants  and  animals  ;  in  the 
equation  of  quantity  and  quality  in  the  fluids  of  the  ani¬ 
mal  body;  in  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart;  in  the 
undulations  of  fluids  and  of  sound  ;  in  the  centrifugal 
and  centripetal  gravity  ;  in  electricity,  galvanism,  and 
chemical  affinity.  Superinduce  magnetism  at  one  end  of 
a  needle,  the  opposite  magnetism  takes  place  at  the  other 
end.  If  the  south  attracts,  the  north  repels.  To  empty 
here,  you  must  condense  there.  An  inevitable  dualism 


42 


INDUCTILE  ARGUMENT. 


bisects  nature,  so  that  each  thing  is  a  half,  and  suggests 
another  thing  to  make  it  whole:  as  spirit,  matter;  man, 
woman  ;  odd,  even  ;  subjective,  objective  ;  in,  out  ;  up¬ 
per,  under;  motion,  rest;  yea,  nay. 

Whilst  the  world  is  thus  dual,  so  is  every  one  of  its 
parts.  The  entire  system  of  things  gets  represented  in 
every  particle.  There  is  somewhat  that  resembles  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  the  sea,  day  and  night,  man  and  woman,  in 
a  single  needle  of  the  pine,  in  a  kernel  of  corn,  in  each 
individual  of  every  animal  tribe.  The  reaction,  so  grand 
in  the  elements,  is  repeated  within  these  small  boundaries. 
For  example,  in  the  animal  kingdom  the  physiologist  has 
observed  that  no  creatures  are  favorites,  but  a  certain 
compensation  balances  every  gift  and  every  defect.  A 
surplusage  given  to  one  part  is  paid  out  of  a  reduction 
from  another  part  of  the  same  creature.  If  the  head  and 
neck  are  enlarged,  the  trunk  and  extremities  are  cut  short. 

The  theory  of  the  mechanic  forces  is  another  example. 
•What  we  gain  in  power  is  lost  in  time  ;  and  the  converse. 
The  periodic  or  compensating  errors  of  the  planets  is 
another  instance.  The  influences  of  climate  and  soil  in 
political  history  are  another.  The  cold  climate  invigor¬ 
ates.  The  barren  soil  does  not  breed  fevers,  crocodiles, 
tigers,  or  scorpions. 

The  same  dualism  underlies  the  nature  and  condition 
of  man.  Every  excess  causes  a  defect  ;  every  defect  an 
excess.  Every  sweet  hath  its  sour  ;  every  evil  its  good. 
Ever)^  faculty  which  is  a  receiver  of  pleasure  has  an  equal 
penalty  put  on  its  abuse.  It  is  to  answer  for  its  modera¬ 
tion  with  its  life.  For  every  grain  of  wit  there  is  a  grain 
of  folly.  For  every  thing  you  have  missed,  you  have 
gained  something  else;  and  for  every  thing  you  gain,  you 
lose  something.  If  riches  increase,  they  are  increased 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT, 


43 


that  use  them.  If  the  gatherer  gathers  too  much,  nature 
takes  out  of  the  man  what  she  puts  into  his  chest  ;  swells 
the  estate,  but  kills  the  owner.  Nature  hates  monopolies 
and  exceptions.  The  waves  of  the  sea  do  not  more  speed¬ 
ily  seek  a  level  from  their  loftiest  tossing,  than  the  vari¬ 
eties  of  condition  tend  to  equalize  themselves.  There  is 
always  some  leveling  circumstance  that  puts  down  the 
overbearing,  the  strong,  the  rich,  the  fortunate,  substan¬ 
tially  on  the  same  ground  with  all  others.  Is  a  man  too 
strong  and  fierce  for  society,  and  by  temper  and  position 
a  bad  citizen,  a  morose  ruffian,  with  a  dash  of  the  pirate 
in  him, — nature,  sends  him  a  troop  of  pretty  sons  and 
daughters,  who  are  getting  along  in  the  dame’s  classes  at 
the  village  school,  and  love  and  fear  for  them  smoothes  his 
grim  scowl  to  courtesy.  Thus  she  contrives  to  intenerate 
the  granite  and  feldspar,  takes  the  boar  out  and  puts  the 
lamb  in,  and  keeps  her  balance  true. — Emerson:  Essays ^ 
First  Series,  Compensation. 

(/)  In  every  land  the  same  phenomenon  presents  itself 
— the  greatest  artists  are  heretics  in  sociology.  Tolstoi 
does  not  stand  alone  in  Russia.  To  name  only  one  of 
his  contemporaries,  Dostoievsky,  scarcely  his  inferior  in 
power  and  skill,  was  a  revolutionist.  Turn  to  Scandi¬ 
navia.  One  name  stands  supreme  in  her  literature,  the 
name  of  Ibsen,  whose  attitude  to  the  institutions  of  soci¬ 
ety  has  been  described  as  anarchistic.  Next  to  him  we 
find  Bjornsen,  an  active  republican  propagandist  and 
opponent  of  the  government.  In  Germany  no  one  can 
question  the  primacy  in  art,  extending  over  the  past  thirty 
years,  of  Richard  Wagner,  and  it  would  be  easy  to  quote 
passage  after  passage  from  his  prose  works  which  would 
entitle  him  to  rank  among  the  foremost  German  Social¬ 
ists.  In  France,  one  name  dominates  the  literature  of 


44 


INDUCTILE  ARGUMENT. 


this  century  as  that  of  Voltaire  did  the  last  ;  it  is  the  name 
of  Victor  Hugo — Hugo,  the  climax  of  whose  masterpiece 
is  the  apotheosis  of  the  barricade,  whose  favorite  hero  is 
an  outlaw,  and  whose  meanest  villain  is  Javert,  the  repre¬ 
sentative  of  law  and  order  !  Among  living  French  authors 
Zola  easily  holds  the  most  conspicuous  place,  and  his 
works  show  (take  L’ Argent,  for  instance)  that  he,  too, 
is  awake  to  the  defects  of  society.  His  heroic  attitude 
to-day  in  combating  the  devilish  military  spirit  of  his 
country  and  defending  the  oppressed  Jew  demonstrates 
that  he  has  in  him  the  making  of  a  true  reformer.  There 
are  only  two  writers  in  Italy  whose  books  are  read,  and 
deserve  to  be  ^ead,  in  other  lands.  They  are  De  Amicis 
and  Lombroso,  both  of  them  Socialists,  the  former  having 
been  elected  Deputy  on  the  Socialist  ticket  h,>^w  weeks 
ago.  In  America  I  need  only  cite  the  name  of  Mr.  How¬ 
ells,  who  is  universally  acknowledged  as  our  first  novelist, 
and  whose  action  in  courageously  petitioning  for  the  par¬ 
don  of  the  Anarchists  of  Chicago  still  puzzles  the  critics, 
not  to  speak  of  his  philosophy  of  life  in  general.  I  think 
I  have  now  covered  most  of  the  literatures  of  the  day.  If 
I  have  omitted  Spain  and  Poland,  it  is  only  because  I  am 
not  familiar  with  their  writers.  In  the  department  of 
painting  I  am  not  qualified  to  speak,  but  I  know  that 
Repin,  the  greatest  of  Russian  artists  ;  Millet,  the  greatest 
of  French ;  and  Watts,  the  greatest  of  English;  not  to  men¬ 
tion  Burne-Jones,  Walter  Crane,  and  others — are  all  of 
them  more  or  less  tarred  by  the  same  brush. 

{m)  The  innate  depravity  of  inanimate  things  is  well 
known.  An  umbrella  will  refuse  to  open  when  it  begins 
to  rain.  Shoe-strings  break  when  you  are  furthest  from  a 
base  of  supplies,  and  buttons  come  off  when  you  are  fur¬ 
thest  from  the  domestic  repair  shop ;  the  pernicious  habits 


INDUCTILE  ARGUMENT. 


45 


of  collar  buttons  and  stovepipes  are  so  well  known  as  to 
be  proverbial.  If  any  man  doubts  that  a  perverse  and  ill- 
conditioned  soul  lurks  somewhere  in  a  needle,  let  him  try 
to  sew  on  a  suspender  button.  The  furnace  takes  advan¬ 
tage  of  zero  weather  to  get  out  of  order,  just  as  the  bathtub 
does  of  the  first  warm,  oppressive  days  of  June.  The 
cunning  of  slippers  is  another  example.  The  pair  never 
hide  together,  but  one  will  get  into  an  old  arctic  in  the 
hall  and  the  other  will  retreat  to  the  furthest  corner  under 
the  desk,  and,  with  an  instinct  like  that  of  the  bugs  which 
pretend  to  be  pieces  of  twigs,  will  turn  itself  sole  upwards 
so  as  to  match  the  floor.  How  a  knife  gets  into  the 
pocket  of  the  waistcoat  you  are  not  wearing  is  not  known, 
though  the  fact  is  well  established.  If  you  wish  to  break 
a  pair  of  eye-glasses,  get  a  novel  you  especially  wish  to 
read  and  sit  down  with  it  before  an  open  fire.  Note  par¬ 
ticularly  that  the  spring  will  not  break  before  you  become 
interested.  If  the  book  is  dull  or  if  you  are  forced  to  read 
it,  the  glasses  will  remain  quiescent.  Or,  if  you  are 
straining  your  eyes,  they  never  break.  Why  this  is  so,  no 
one  knows.  “  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth, 
Horatio,  than  are  dreamed  of  m  your  philosophy.  "  The 
principle  is  well  understood.  Try  to  lose  a  thing  and  you 
cannot  rid  yourself  of  it;  try  to  preserve  it  and  it  will  lose 
itself. 

Wright  says  that  of  4340  convicts  at  one  time  in 
Massachusetts,  2991,  or  68  percent,  were  returned  as  hav¬ 
ing  no  occupation.  .  .  .  The  warden  of  the  Massachu¬ 
setts  state  prison  stated  that  of  220  men  sentenced  during 
that  year  147  were  without  a  trade,  or  any  regular  means 
of  earning  a  living.  In  Pennsylvania,  during  a  recent 
year,  nearly  88  per  cent  of  the  penitentiary  convicts  had 
never  been  apprenticed  to  any  trade  or  occupation  ;  and 


46 


INDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


this  was  true  also  of  68^  per  cent  of  the  convicts  sen¬ 
tenced  to  county  jails  and  Workhouses  in  the  same  state 
during  the  same  year.  Further,  in  Mr.  Frederic  Wines’s 
recent  report  on  homicide  in  the  United  States  in  1890,  it 
is  shown  that  of  6958  men,  5175,  or  more  than  74  per  cent 
of  the  whole,  were  said  to  have  no  trade. — Ferrero:  Work 
and  Morality,  Forum,  Nov.  1896,  pp.  363-4. 

(<9)  Aurora  forgot  to  ask  youth  for  her  lover,  and 
though  Tithonus  is  immortal,  he  is  old.  Achilles  is  not 
quite  invulnerable  ;  the  sacred  waters  did  not  wash  the 
heel  by  which  Thetis  held  him.  Siegfried,  in  the  Nibel- 
ungen,  is  not  quite  immortal,  for  a  leaf  fell  on  his  back 
whilst  he  was  bathing  in  the  dragon’s  blood,  and  that 
spot  which  it  covered  is  mortal.  And  so  it  must  be. 
There  is  a  crack  in  everything  God  has  made.  It  would 
seem,  there  is  always  this  vindictive  circumstance  stealing 
in  at  unawares,  even  into  the  wild  poesy  in  which  the 
human  fancy  attempted  to  make  bold  holiday,  and  to 
shake  itself  free  of  the  old  laws, — this  back-stroke,  this 
kick  of  the  gun,  certifying  that  the  law  is  fatal  ;  that  in 
nature  nothing  can  be  given,  all  things  are  sold. — Emer¬ 
son  :  First  Series,  Compensation. 

(/)  Often  we  are  ourselves  struck  at  the  strange  differ¬ 
ences  in  our  successive  views  of  the  same  thing.  We 
wonder  how  we  ever  could  have  opined  as  we  did  last 
month  about  a  certain  matter.  We  have  outgrown  the 
possibility  of  that  state  of  mind,  we  know  not  how. 
From  one  year  to  another  we  see  things  in  new  lights. 
What  was  unreal  has  grown  real,  and  what  was  exciting 
is  insipid.  The  friends  we  used  to  care  the  world  for  are 
shrunken  to  shadows  ;  the  women  once  so  divine,  the 
stars,  the  woods,  and  the  waters,  how  now  so  dull  and 
common ! — the  young  girls  that  brought  an  aura  of  infin- 


INDUCTILE  ARGUMENT. 


47 


ity,  at  present  hardly  distinguishable  existences  ;  the  pic¬ 
tures,  so  empty  ;  and  as  for  the  books,  what  was  there  to 
find  so  mysteriously  significant  in  Goethe,  or  in  John  Mill 
so  full  of  weight  ? — James:  Psychology,  ch.  XL 

(y)  Natural  instincts  are  lost  under  domestication  : 
a  remarkable  instance  of  this  is  seen  in  those  breeds  of 
fowls  which  very  rarely  or  never  become  ‘  ‘  broody  ’  ’ ;  that 
is,  never  wish  to  sit  on  their  eggs.  Familiarity  alone  pre¬ 
vents  our  seeing  how  largely  and  how  permanently  the 
minds  of  our  domestic  animals  have  been  modified.  It  is 
scarcely  possible  to  doubt  that  the  love  of  man  has  be¬ 
come  instinctive  in  the  dog.  All  wolves,  foxes,  jackals, 
and  species  of  the  cat  genus,  when  kept  tame,  are  most 
eager  to  attack  poultry,  sheep,  and  pigs  ;  and  this  tend¬ 
ency  has  been  found  incurable  in  dogs  which  have  been 
brought  home  as  puppies  from  countries  such  as  Terra 
del  Fuego  and  Australia,  where  the  savages  do  not  keep 
these  domestic  animals.  How  rarely,  on  the  other  hand, 
do  our  civilized  dogs,  even  when  quite  young,  require  to 
be  taught  not  to  attack  poultry,  sheep,  and  pigs  !  No 
doubt  they  occasionally  do  make  an  attack,  and  are  then 
beaten  ;  and  if  not  cured,  they  are  destroyed  ;  so  that 
habit  and  some  degree  of  selection  have  probably  concurred 
in  civilizing,  by  inheritance,  our  dogs.  On  the  other  hand, 
young  chickens  have  lost,  wholly  by  habit,  that  fear  of 
the  dog  and  cat  which  no  doubt  was  originally  instinctive 
in  them;  for  I  am  informed  by  Captain  Hutton  that  the 
young  chickens  of  the  parent-stock,  the  Gallus  bankiva, 
when  reared  in  India  under  a  hen,  are  at  first  excessively 
wild.  So  it  is  with  young  pheasants  reared  in  England 
under  a  hen.  It  is  not  that  chickens  have  lost  all  fear, 
but  fear  only  of  dogs  and  cats;  for  if  the  hen  gives  the 
danger-chuckle,  they  will  run  (more  especially  young  tur- 


48 


INDUCTiyE  ARGUMENT. 


keys)  from  under  her,  and  conceal  themselves  in  the  sur¬ 
rounding  grass  of  thickets;  and  this  is  evidently  done  for 
the  instinctive  purpose  of  allowing,  as  we  see  in  wild 
ground-birds,  their  mother  to  fly  away.  But  this  instinct 
retained  by  our  chickens  has  become  useless  under  domes¬ 
tication,  for  the  mother-hen  has  almost  lost,  by  disuse,  the 
power  of  flight. — Darwin:  Origin  of  Species,  §  402. 

(r)  The  universal  nature,  too  strong  for  the  petty  na¬ 
ture  of  the  bard,  sits  on  his  neck  and  writes  through  his 
hand;  so  that  when  he  seems  to  vent  a  mere  caprice  and 
wild  romance,  the  issue  is  an  exact  allegory.  Hence 
Plato  said  that  “  poets  utter  great  and  wise  things  which 
they  do  not  themselves  understand.’’  All  the  fictions  of 
the  Middle  Age  explain  themselves  as  a  masked  or  frolic 
expression  of  that  which  in  grave  earnest  the  mind  of  that 
period  toiled  to  achieve.  Magic,  and  all  that  is  ascribed 
to  it,  is  a  deep  presentiment  of  the  powers  of  science. 
The  shoes  of  swiftness,  the  sword  of  sharpness,  the  power 
of  subduing  the  elements,  of  using  the  secret  virtues  of 
minerals,  of  understanding  the  voices  of  birds,  are  the 
obscure  efforts  of  the  mind  in  a  right  direction.  The 
preternatural  prowess  of  the  hero,  the  gift  of  perpetual 
youth,  and  the  like,  are  alike  the  endeavor  of  the  human 
spirit  ‘  ‘  to  bend  the  shows  of  things  to  the  desire  of  the 
mind.  ” 

In  Perceforest  and  Amadis  de  Gaul,  a  garland  and  a 
rose  bloom  on  the  head  of  her  who  is  faithful,  and  fade  on 
the  brow  of  the  inconstant.  In  the  story  of  the  Boy  and 
the  Mantle,  even  a  mature  reader  may  be  surprised  with  a 
glow  of  virtuous  pleasure  at  the  triumph  of  the  gentle 
Genelas;  and,  indeed,  all  the  postulates  of  elfin  annals — 
that  the  fairies  do  not  like  to  be  named  ;  that  their  gifts 
are  capricious  and  not  to  be  trusted ;  that  who  seeks  a 


INDUCTIl^E  ARGUMENT. 


49 


treasure  must  not  speak,  and  the  like — I  find  true  in 
Concord,  however  they  might  be  in  Cornwall  or  Bretagne. 

Is  it  otherwise  in  the  newest  lomance  }  .  I  read  the 
Bride  of  Lammermoor.  Sir  William  Ashton  is  a  mask  for 
a  vulgar  temptation,  Ravenswood  Castle  a  fine  name  for 
proud  poverty,  and  the  foreign  mission  of  state  only  a 
Bunyan  disguise  for  honest  industry.  We  may  all  shoot 
a  wild  bull  that  would  toss  the  good  and  beautiful,  by 
fighting  down  the  unjust  and  sensual.  Lucy  Ashton  is 
another  name  for  fidelity,  which  is  always  beautiful  and 
always  liable  to  calamity  in  this  world. — Emerson  :  As¬ 
says  ^  First  Series^  History. 

4.  Write  an  inductive  argument  which  shall  seek  to  es¬ 
tablish  any  one  of  the  following  conclusions,  fixing  in 
your  own  mind  upon  the  audience  you  address.  Analyze 
the  argument  completely,  and  state  whether  it  is  capable 
of  refutation  by  any  means.  i 

cfif)  All  times  of  great  need  bring  forth  great  men. 

ijf)  People  are  not  content  with  what  they  have. 

(c)  All  men  who  find  power  lose  personal  freedom. 

(</)  Minds  are  acted  upon  by  each  other  without  any 
apparent  means  of  communication. 

(e)  People  lose  their  romantic  sentiments  as  they  gain 
experience. 

L(f)  All  great  men  are  self-made. 

(£■)  All  men  who  accomplish  a  great  work  spend  a  long 
period  in  preparation  for  that  work. 

(A)  All  great  reformers  are  the  exponents  of  the  spirit 

/  ^ 

of  their  times. 

‘^'(i)  All  evil  is  a  result  of  selfishness. 

(j)  All  great  men  have  gained  little  from  books. 

(Jt)  All  friendships  are  based  upon  a  certain  likeness  of 
“"character. 

(/)  All  progress  is  the  result  of  discontent. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 

Through  inductive  reasoning,  as  we  have  seen,  we  learn 
the  characteristics  of  a  whole  class  by  experiences  with 
particular  members  of  that  class.  We  conclude  that 
green  apples  as  a  class  are  sour  and  hard,  because  several 
which  we  have  tasted  were  sour  and  hard.  But  we  often 
make  use  of  such  a  conclusion  as  this  to  tell  us  something 
about  an  unknown  member  of  the  same  class,  as  when  we 
judge  a  certain  green  apple,  which  we  have  not  tasted,  to 
be  sour  and  hard.  It  is  evident  that  we  cannot  in  this 
case  come  directly  to  the  belief  that  the  apple  is  sour  and 
hard,  as  we  could  do  if  we  had  actually  tasted  it.  We  do 
not  positively  know  that  this  green  apple  is  sour  and  hard. 
We  only  infer  that  it  is.  That  is,  we  come  to  a  conclu¬ 
sion  concerning  it,  without  having  actually  had  experi¬ 
ence  with  it. 

A  conclusion  which  thus  transcends  experience  is 
called  an  inference.  We  drew  inferences,  it  will  be  re¬ 
membered,  in  the  case  of  inductive  reasoning.  When 
we- concluded  that  all  green  apples  are  hard  and  sour,  we 
did  so  not  because  we  had  actually  tasted  all  green  apples 
and  found  them  individually  hard  and  sour,  but  because 
we  inferred  the  hardness  and  sourness  of  the  class  of  green 
apples  from  that  of  several  green  apples  which  we  had 

50 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


51 


tasted.  Each  of  these  conclusions,  then,  that  all  green 
apples  are  hard  and  sour  and  that  this  (untasted)  green 
apple  is  hard  and  sour,  has  been  gained,  not  directly 
from  experience,  either  with  the  whole  class  or  with  the 
single  individual  concerned,  but  indirectly  through  a  proc¬ 
ess  of  reasoning,  which,  although  based  on  experience, 
passes  beyond  it.  Both  these  conclusions  are,  therefore, 
inferences.  It  will  be  well  to  note  sharply  the  distinction 
between  such  logical  conclusions  as  these,  and  the  direct 
results  of  experience,  with  which  latter,  argumentation  has 
nothing  to  do. 

Let  us  now  examine  somewhat  more  closely  that  par¬ 
ticular  variety  of  logical  inference  by  which  one  is  led 
from  the  sourness  and  hardness  of  the  whole  class  of  green 
apples,  to  the  sourness  and  hardness  of  a  particular  green 
apple  as  yet  untasted.  How  are  we  enabled  to  reach  the 
conclusion  that  this  particular  green  apple  is  hard  and 
sour  }  We  do  not,  as  has  been  said,  determine  the  point 
by  direct  experience.  We  are,  however,  practically  as 
sure  of  it  as  if  we  had  actually  tasted  and  found  the  apple 
hard  and  sour.  If  interrogated  as  to  the  source  of  our 
judgment  that  this  particular  green  apple  is  hard  and  sour, 
we  should  at  once  answer,  “  Why,  I  know  it  because  all 
green  apples  are  hard  and  sour.’'  We  are  drawing  a  con¬ 
clusion,  then,  as  to  the  characteristic  of  one  member  of  a 
class,  on  the  basis  of  our  experience  with  other  members 
of  the  same  class. 

We  find  ourselves  making  judgments  of  this  kind  every 
day.  “  That  snow  won’t  pack,”  we  say,  though  we  have 
not  tried  to  pack  it;  or,  “  The  surface  of  that  cloth  is  a 
regular  dust-catcher,”  though  no  dust  as  yet  clings  to  it. 
We  buy  a  seat  at  the  Harvard- Yale  football  game,  sure 
that  it  is  worth  seeing,  though  as  yet  we  have  not  seen 


52 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


it;  or  pay  half  a  dollar  more  for  a  certain  make  of  glove 
in  the  persuasion  that  it  is  more  durable,  before  we  have 
worn  it  at  all.  In  all  these  cases,  it  is  evident,  we  con¬ 
clude  something  about  an  individual  member  of  a  class, 
on  the  basis  of  a  previous  conclusion  about  the  class  as  a 
whole.  Having  often  tried  to  pack  snow  of  a  certain 
light,  dry  sort,  we  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  all 
snow  of  this  sort  refuses  to  cohere,  and  can  now  infer  that 
this  particular  snow,  having  the  same  light,  dry  consist¬ 
ency,  has  also  the  same  reluctance  to  being  packed.  By 
experience  we  have  learned  that  cloth  whose  surface  pre¬ 
sents  a  peculiar  unequal,  fuzzy  appearance  catches  dust, 
hence  we  suppose  that  this  particular  piece  of  cloth, 
whose  surface  presents  this  appearance,  tends  also  to  re¬ 
tain  the  dust.  The  Harvard -Yale  football  games  are 
always  worth  seeing,  and  this  make  of  glove  has  proved 
itself  to  be  especially  durable.  Hence  this  particular 
game  is  sure  to  be  worth  seeing,  and  this  particular  pair  of 
gloves  to  be  serviceable. 

The  logical  process  by  which  one  reaches  such  conclu* 
sions  as  these  is  perhaps  somewhat  less  simple  than  at 
first  appears.  It  is  evident  that  we  have  no  right  to  ascribe 
the  characteristic  of  durability  to  this  particular  pair  of 
gloves  on  the  strength  of  their  belonging  to  a  class  of 
durable  gloves,  unless  we  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
members  of  a  class  have  the  characteristics  of  the  class. 
Inductive  reasoning,  we  found,  depends  upon  the  princi¬ 
ple  that  a  class  has  the  characteristics  of  its  individual 
members.  Deduction  seems  to  invert  this  assumption, 
declaring  not  that  what  is  true  of  the  members  of  a  class 
is  true  of  the  class,  but  that  what  is  true  of  the  class  is 
true  of  each  of  its  members.  Only  if  this  assumption 
holds,  can  one  possibly  conclude  that  because  all  the  Har- 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


53 


vard-Yale  football  games  are  worth  seeing  this  one  is 
worth  seeing.  We  may,  then,  formulate  the  deductive 
assumption  as  follows:  “  What  is  true  of  the  class  is  true 
of  an  individual  member  of  that  class. 

Upon  this  assumption  is  built  all  deductive  reasoning. 
Since  what  is  true  of  a  class  as  a  whole  is  true  also  of  its 
individual  members,  in  order  to  conclude  that  a  certain 
characteristic  belongs  to  a  given  individual,  one  has  only 
to  know  that  this  characteristic  pertains  to  a  certain  class 

I 

and  that  the  individual  in  question  belongs  to  that  class. 

These,  then,  are  the  stages  of  the  deductive  process. 

I.  A  certain  class  has  this  particular  characteristic. 

II.  The  individual  in  question  belongs  to  this  class. 

III.  The  individual  in  question  has  this  particular  char¬ 
acteristic. 

These  stages  appear  in  the  process  of  reasoning  by 
which  one  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  an  American 
woman  whom  he  has  never  heard  speak  has  a  nasal  voice, 
because  all  American  women  have  this  characteristic. 
Believing  that  what  is  true  of  the  class  is  true  of  a  particu¬ 
lar  member  of  the  class,  and  having  already  arrived  at  the 
inductive  conclusion  that  all  American  women  have  nasal 
voices,  as  soon  as  one  learns  that  this  particular  woman 
is  American,  he  is  straightway  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  she  has  a  nasal  voice.  He  has  assigned  a  certain 
characteristic  to  a  whole  class,  identified  an  individual 
with  a  class,  and  in  consequence  has  been  obliged  to  as¬ 
sign  the  characteristic  of  the  class  to  the  individual. 

This  process  does  not  fundamentally  differ  from  that 
which  takes  place  when  we  say  that  a  certain  individual 
must  belong  to  a  certain  class  because  it  has  the  charac¬ 
teristics  peculiar  to  the  class ;  as,  for  instance,  when  one 
says,  “  Of  course  she's  an  American.  Didn’t  you  hear  her 


54 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


nasal  voice  The  speaker  has  reasoned  that  what  is 
true  of  all  people  who  have  nasal  voices,  namely,  that  they 
belong  to  the  class  of  Americans,  must  be  true  of  this 
particular  person  who  has  a  nasal  voice.  He  has  pre¬ 
viously  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  entire  class  of 
people  who  have  nasal  voices  is  included  in  the  class  of 
Americans.  Observing,  then,  that  this  individual  belongs 
to  the  class  of  people  who  have  nasal  voices,  he  concludes 
that  this  individual  must  also  fall  within  the  class  of 
Americans.  Here  we  have  the  assignment  to  a  class,  of  all 
individuals  having  a  certain  characteristic,  the  identifica¬ 
tion  of  a  particular  individual  with  those  having  this  char¬ 
acteristic,  and  the  consequent  assignment  of  the  in¬ 
dividual  to  the  class. 

At  first  sight  the  processes  leading  to  these  two  conclu¬ 
sions — “  She  has  a  nasal  voice’'  and  “  She  is  an  Ameri¬ 
can” — may  seem  different,  but  closer  inspection  reveals 
their  essential  identity.  The  inductive  conclusion,  we 
learned  from  the  previous  discussion  of  inductive  reason¬ 
ing,  *  declares  that  all  the  members  of  a  certain  class  have 
a  certain  characteristic,  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same 
thing,  that  the  whole  of  a  certain  class  is  included  in  a 
larger  class,  as  the  whole  of  the  class  china  in  the  class  of 
breakable  things,  or  the  whole  of,  the  class  roses  in  the 
class  of  prickly-stemmed  things.  In  like  manner  the  de¬ 
ductive  conclusion  declares  that  an  individual  has  the 
characteristic  of  its  class,  or  that  it  belongs  to  the  class 
whose  characteristic  it  shares,  or,  which  includes  these  two 
formulae,  that  an  individual  belongs  to  the  class  which  in¬ 
cludes  the  smaller  class  to  which  it  belongs.  Thus  the 
conclusion,  “  She  has  a  nasal  voice,”  says,  in  effect,  that 


*  Chapter  II. 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


55 


the  individual,  belonging  to  the  smaller  class  of  Ameri¬ 
cans,  is,  by  virtue  of  this  fact,  also  a  member  of  the  larger 
class  of  people  with  nasal  voices.  Or,  the  conclusion 
“  She  is  an  American,’’  asserts  implicitly  that  the  individ¬ 
ual,  belonging  to  the  class  of  people  who  have  nasal 
voices,  is  thereby  constituted  a  member  of  the  class  of 
Americans,  which  includes  the  whole  class  of  people  who 
have  nasal  voices. 

This  view  of  the  case  reduces  deductive  reasoning  to  the 
process  of  concluding  that  A  is  contained  in  C,  if  it  is 
also  contained  in  B  and  B  is  contained  in  C.  It  is  virtu¬ 
ally  saying,  “I  left  that  mortgage  in  my  office,  for  it  is  in 
my  desk,  and  my  desk  is  in  my  office,”  or  “  I  have  a  five- 
dollar  bill  in  my  pocket,  for  it  is  in  my  purse,  and  my 
purse  is  in  my  pocket.” 

We  have  here,  then,  the  most  general  formula  for  de¬ 
ductive  reasoning.  It  may  be  represented  graphically  by 
the  old  device  of  circles. 


It  is  clear  that  A  is  included  in  C,  since  B  is  included 
in  C  and  A  is  included  in  B.  Thus  one  is  safe  in  coming 
to  the  conclusion  that  an  unopened  letter,  just  received. 


56 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


contains  a  check,  if  all  letters  addressed  in  this  handwrit¬ 
ing  and  arriving  at  this  particular  time  in  the  week  or 
month  do  contain  checks.  The  process  of  reasoning 
would  be  as  follows  :  All  letters  addressed  in  my  father’s 
handwriting  and  received  on  the  first  of  the  month  con¬ 
tain  a  check.  This  letter  is  addressed  in  my  father’s 
handwriting  and  is  received  on  the  first  of  the  month. 
Therefore  it  contains  a  check.  That  is, — This  individual 
letter  belongs  to  the  class  of  letters  received  on  the  first  of 
the  month  addressed  in  a  certain  handwriting;  and  this 
class  of  letters  is  wholly  included  in  the  class  of  letters 
which  contain  checks  ;  hence  this  letter  belongs  to  the 
class  of  letters  containing  checks. 


« 


Deductive  reasoning  has,  then,  for  its  task  the  assign¬ 
ing  of  a  certain  individual  to  a  class,  on  the  basis  of  that 
individual’s  membership  in  another  class  which  is  wholly 
included  in  the  class  first  mentioned.  Induction  has  pre¬ 
pared  the  way  for  the  successful  performance  of  this  task, 
by  assigning  the  smaller  class  to  the  larger.  This  having 
been  done,  deduction  fulfills  the  process  by  referring  a 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING, 


57 


given  individual  to  the  smaller  class,  and  thus  to  the 
larger  class  which  includes  the  smaller. 

The  significance  of  the  term  “  deduction  ”  as  applied 
to  the  kind  of  reasoning  discussed  in  this  chapter  is  com¬ 
monly  explained  according  to  its  etymology  by  saying 
that  deductive  reasoning  leads  from  a  general  statement 
of  the  characteristic  of  a  class,  to  the  particular  statement 
of  the  characteristic  of  a  single  individual  in  that  class. 
Induction,  we  found,  brings  scattered  judgments  concern¬ 
ing  the  individual  members  of  a  class  together  into  a 
single  judgment  of  the  class  as  a  whole.  As  contrasted 
with  this  process,  deduction  may  be  said  to  draw  this 
larger  judgment  of  the  class  down  to  a  particular  point, 
the  judgment  concerning  an  individual  member  of  the 
class,  hitherto  unknown.  This  conception  of  the  essential 
difference  between  the  two  processes  might  be  represented 
by  the  following  diagram.* 

We  should  now  examine  somewhat  more  minutely  the 
elements  of  deductive  reasoning.  Of  its  three  stages  we 
have  already  noted  that  the  first  assigns  the  smaller  class 
to  the  larger,  or,  to  use  convenient  scientific  terms,  the 
species  to  the  genus;  the  second  includes  the  individual 
in  its  species,  and  the  third  declares  the  membership  of 
the  individual  in  the  genus.  Thus,  if  we  conclude  that 
Sousa’s  new  march,  which  we  have  not  yet  heard,  is 
lively  and  “  catching,”  because  all  his  marches  are  so,  we 
first  declare  that  the  species,  Sousa’s  marches,  belongs  to 
the  genus,  marches  that  are  lively  and  “  catching,”  then 
assert  that  this  particular  march  belongs  to  the  species, 
Sousa’s  marches,  and  hence  are  forced  to  conclude  that 

*  The  relations  between  inductive  and  deductive  reasoning  are  fur¬ 
ther  discussed  in  Appendix  B. 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING, 


58 

this  particular  march  is  included  also  in  the  genus, 
marches  that  are  lively  and  “  catching/’ 

This  entire  process  of  reasoning,  as  thus  skeletonized, 
is  termed  a  syllogism.  Each  of  its  three  stages,  like  the 
stages  of  inductive  reasoning,  asserts  or  declares  some¬ 
thing,  makes  a  complete  statement,  and  hence  is  known 


as  a  proposition.  But  each  of  these  three  propositions  is 
also,  for  convenience,  distinguished  from  each  of  the 
others  by  a  specific  name.  That  proposition  which 
affirms  the  inclusion  of  species  in  genus  is  termed  the 
major  premise;  that  which  declares  the  inclusion  of  indi¬ 
vidual  in  species,  the  minor  premise  ;  and  that  which  as¬ 
serts  the  inclusion  of  the  individual  in  the  genus,  the  con- 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


59 


elusion.  Thus  in  the  syllogism  previously  discussed,  the 
proposition,  “  All  Sousa’s  marches  are  lively  and  ‘  catch¬ 
ing,’”  is  the  major  premise;  “This  march  is  one  of 
Sousa’s  marches”  is  the  minor  premise;  and  “This 
march  is  lively  and  ‘catching’  ”  is  the  conclusion. 

The  significance  of  the  terms,  major  premise  and  minor 
premise,  as  applied  to  the  earlier  propositions  of  the  syl¬ 
logism,  does  not  fully  appear  until  the  propositions  them¬ 
selves  have  been  further  analyzed.  We  have  seen  that 
the  conclusion,  toward  which  the  deductive  process  tends, 
assigfis  the  individual  to  that  larger  class  which  we  have 
called  the  genus.  To  accomplish  this  classification  of  the 
individual  is  the  end  of  deductive  reasoning.  Of  the  three 
ultimate  elements  in  deductive  reasoning,  the  genus,  the 
species,  and  the  individual,  only  the  first  and  the  last  are 
of  prime  importance.  The  second  is  used  only  as  a  go- 
between,  a  means  of  achieving  the  classification  of  the  in¬ 
dividual  under  the  genus.  It  is  impossible  to  say  directly 
that  the  individual  is  included  under  the  genus  ;  we  can 
know  that  only  by  first  assigning  it  to  the  species  which 
is  embraced  by  the  genus.  Hence  we  use  the  species  to 
form  a  bridge  for  us  from  the  individual  to  the  genus.  It 
has  no  value  save  as  an  intermediary,  hence  it  is  com¬ 
monly  known  as  the  middle  term,  while  the  individual 
and  the  genus  are  called  the  extreme  terms,  or  the  ex¬ 
tremes.  The  extremes,  however,  are  further  distinguished  ; 
the  genus,  as  the  larger  term,  being  named  the  major, 
and  the  individual,  as  the  smaller,  receiving  the  designa¬ 
tion  of  the  minor. 

These,  then,  are  the  three  terms  of  the  syllogism — the 
major,  representing  the  genus,  to  which  the  individual  is 
tb  be  assigned ;  the  minor,  representing  the  individual, 
which  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  genus;  and  the  middle,  rep- 


6o 


DEDUCTIVE  RE/fSONING. 


resenting  the  species,  through  which  the  individual  is 
brought  into  connection  with  the  genus.  The  location 
of  these  terms  in  the  s}dlogism  determines  the  names  ap¬ 
plied  to  the  premises.  The  major  premise,  which  assigns 
the  species  to  the  genus,  plainly  deals  with  both  the 
major  and  the  middle  terms  ;  the  minor  premise,  which 
refers  the  individual  to  its  class,  has  to  do  with  both 
minor  and  middle  terms  ;  while  the  conclusion,  classify¬ 
ing  the  individual  with  the  genus,  involves  the  major  and 
the  minor  terms.  The  names  of  the  premises,  it  will  be 
noted,  correspond  each  with  the  name  of  the  term  of  first 
importance  which  it  contains.  The  middle  term,  being 
comparatively  colorless,  is  left  out  of  the  reckoning  alto¬ 
gether,  and  the  proposition  containing  both  the  major 
and  the  middle  term  is  known  as  the  major  premise,  while 
that  containing  the  minor  and  the  middle  term  becomes 
thereby  the  minor  premise.  The  conclusion,  which  con¬ 
tains  both  major  and  minor  terms,  is  designated  by  the 
name  of  neither. 

The  location  of  terms  in  the  syllogism  may  be  repre¬ 
sented  by  such  a  skeletonized  formula  as  the  following: 


I.  Major  premise:  middle .  major. 

II.  Minor  premise :  minor .  middle. 

III.  Conclusion:  minor .  major. 


This  formula  shows  the  syllogism  bound  together  by  a 
triple  link.  The  middle  and  the  major  terms  are  first 
connected,  then  the  minor  with  the  middle,  and  last  the 
minor  with  the  major.  The  connections  between  these 
terms  might  thus  be  shown  by  diagram. 

The  deductive  syllogism,  then,  represents  a  reasoning 
process  whose  elements  are  very  closely  linked  together. 
So  close  and  so  well  established  is  this  connection,  that, 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


6i 


given  the  conclusion,  the  entire  syllogism  can  easily  be 
built  up.  Let  us  say  that  we  wish  to  determine  what 
reasoning  process  might  fairly  lead  to  the  conclusion  that 
J.  H.  Shorthouse's  John  Inglesant  ought  to  be  purchased 
for  a  certain  school  library.  The  conclusion  has  already 
been  formulated — "‘John  Inglesant  ought  to  be  purchased 
for  this  school  library.  The  minor  term,  John  Inglesant, 
is  assigned  to  the  major  term,  that  is,  to  the  class  of 
books  which  ought  to  be  purchased  for  this  library.  Only 
the  middle  term  is  lacking  ;  and  this  at  once  declares 
itself  in  answer  to  the  question,  “  Why  should  we  think 
that  John  Inglesant  ought  to  be  purchased  for  this 


conclusion 


library?”  Plainly,  one  could  come  to  this  conclusion 
because  he  believed  that  all  good  historical  novels,  in  the 
number  of  which  he  counts  John  Inglesant,  should  be  pur¬ 
chased  for  this  library,  in  which  case  the  middle  term  is 
apparent — the  class  of  good  historical  novels.  Once  the 
minor  term,  John  Inglesant,  is  referred  to  this  class,  and 
this  class  is  included  in  the  larger  class  of  books  which 
should  be  purchased  for  the  school  library,  the  triple  con¬ 
nection  is  made,  and  John  Inglesant  is  thereby  declared  to 
belong  to  that  class  of  books  which  should  be  purchased 
for  the  school  library. 

The  determination  of  the  way  to  a  given  deductive  con¬ 
clusion  depends,  then,  upon  the  discovery  of  the  appro¬ 
priate  middle  term.  The  conclusion  itself  furnishes  the 
major  term  and  the  minor,  so  that  the  task  of  filling  out 


62 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


the  syllogism  resolves  itself  into  the  search  for  the  inter¬ 
mediary  through  which  the  minor  term  has  been  brought 
into  relation  with  the  major. 

Such  a  typical  form  of  syllogism  as  that  which  we  have 
considered  in  this  chapter  submits  itself,  we  may  notice, 
to  the  following  tests  :  It  is  made  up  of  three  terms,  and 
three  only,  these  being  so  arranged  that  they  constitute 
three  distinct  propositions.  Each  term  appears  twice  in 
the  entire  syllogism,  but  only  once  in  any  one  proposi¬ 
tion.  Each  term  represents  either  a  class  or  a  member  of 
a  class  ;  that  representing  the  largest  element  in  the  syl¬ 
logism  being  called  the  major  term,  that  indicating  the 
smallest  the  minor  term,  and  that  standing  for  the  inter¬ 
mediary  between  these  two,  the  middle  term.  Each  term 
is  expressed  throughout  the  syllogism  in  the  same  form  of 
words.  Each  of  the  three  propositions  has  its  own  pecu¬ 
liar  function  in  the  syllogism;  the  first,  called  the  major 
premise,  assigning  the  middle  to  the  major  term  ;  the  sec¬ 
ond,  or  the  minor  premise,  including  the  minor  in  the 
middle  term;  and  the  third,  or  the  conclusion,  declaring 
the  minor  to  be  a  member  of  the  class  represented  by  the 
major  term. 

So  much  for  the  typical  form  of  the  simple  syllogism. 
Many  other  forms  are  known  to  the  books  of  logic,  but 
we  need  concern  ourselves  with  them  only  so  far  as  to  see 
how  they  may  be  reduced  to  this  more  primitive  type. 

Syllogisms  which  are  technically  called  “  simple’’  are 
those  whose  propositions  are  all  simple,  containing  but 
a  single  subject  and  predicate.  The  following  is  an  illus¬ 
tration  : 

1.  All  silk  is  smooth  to  the  touch. 

11.  This  fabric  is  silk. 

III.  This  fabric  is  (will  prove)  smooth  to  the  touch. 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING, 


63 


Such  a  syllogism  as  this  may  readily  be  distinguished 
from  complex  or  hypothetical  syllogisms,  at  least  one  of 
whose  propositions  is  complex,  that  is,  made  up  of  one  or 
more  propositions.  Of  the  complex  syllogism  either  of 
the  following  may  serve  as  examples  : 

I.  If  silk  is  smooth  to  the  touch,  dust  will  not  cling 
to  it. 

II.  Silk  is  smooth  to  the  touch. 

III.  Dust  will  not  cling  to  it. 
or, 

I.  Either  silk  is  smooth  to  the  touch,  or  woolen  is. 

II.  Silk  is  smooth  to  the  touch. 

III.  Woolen  is  not  smooth  to  the  touch. 

In  each  of  these  complex  syllogisms,  while  the  minor 
premise  .is  a  simple  proposition,  the  major  premise  is 
complex,  made  up  of  two  simple  propositions,  “  Silk  is 
smooth  to  the  touch,''  and  “  Dust  will  not  cling  to  it," 
or,  in  the  second  illustration,  “Silk  is  smooth  to  the 
touch,"  and  “  Woolen  is  not  smooth  to  the  touch." 

We  shall  consider  in  turn  the  various  forms  of  both 
simple  and  complex  syllogisms  and  the  means  by  which 
each  may  be  reduced  to  the  typical  form  which  has 
been  previously  defined. 

Simple  syllogisms  of  our  typical  form  have  invariably  a 
major  premise  of  the  following  order  :  “All  poverty  is  the 
result  of  improvidence,"  “All  lies  are  unjustifiable," 
“  All  the  good  die  young,"  “  All  laws  ought  to  be  en¬ 
forced."  Each  of  these  propositions  assigns  an  entire 
class  to  another  larger  class.  Absolutely  the  whole  of  the 
class  of  lies  is  included  in  the  class  of  unjustifiable  things  ; 
absolutely  the  whole  of  the  class  of  laws,  in  the  class  of 
things  that  ought  to  be  enforced.  Such  a  proposition  is 


64 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


called  a  universal  affirmative  proposition.  We  have  here¬ 
tofore  represented  it  as  follows : 

I. 


But  one  may  sometimes  be  tempted  to  use  for  the 
major  premise  of  a  syllogism  propositions  somewhat  differ¬ 
ing  from  these  in  form.  He  may,  for  instance,  attempt 
to  substitute  a  statement  not  quite  so  sweeping.  “  Some 
lies  are  justifiable,’'  he  may  say;  “  Most  laws  ought  to 
be  enforced,”  “  Some  good  people  die  young,”  “  Much 
poverty  is  the  result  of  improvidence.”  These  proposi¬ 
tions  may  be  termed  particular  affirmative  propositions. 
Not  the  whole  of  the  smaller  class  is  included  in  the 
larger,  but  only  some  particular  portion  of  it.  The  two 
classes  intersect,  but  that  is  all. 

The  universal  and  the  particular  propositions  are  thus 
sharply  distinguished  so  far  as  concerns  the  degree  of  in¬ 
clusion  of  the  smaller  class  in  the  larger.  Both  of  them, 
however,  affirm  this  inclusion,  either  in  whole  or  in  part, 
differing  in  this  respect  from  the  negative  propositions, 
which  deny  it.  Such  a  proposition  one  uses  in  asserting 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


65 


that  “  No  lies  are  justifiable/’  that  “  No  novels  are  worth 
reading,”  that  “  No  crimes  are  permanently  hidden,”  or 

II. 


that  “  No  missionary  work  pays.”  The  inclusion  of  the 
one  class  in  the  other  is  here  explicitly  denied.  No  single 
member  of  the  class  of  lies  falls  within  the  class  of  justifi¬ 
able  actions  ;  no  smallest  part  of  the  class  of  novels  be¬ 
longs  within  the  limits  of  the  class  of  books  worth  read¬ 
ing.  The  one  class  is  wholly  excluded  from  the  other,  as 
in  the  following  diagram : 

III. 


66 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


It  is  possible,  however,  to  affirm  the  exclusion  of  the 
smaller  from  the  larger  class,  not  in  whole,  but  in  part. 
One  does  not  venture  to  assert  that  no  lies  are  justifiable, 
but  is  sure  that  not  all  lies  are  justifiable.  Or  he  main¬ 
tains  that  not  all  novels  are  worth  reading,  or  that  not  all 
missionary  work  pays.  Some  part  of  the  smaller  class 
thus  falls  outside  the  limits  of  the  larger,  the  relation  of 
the  two  classes  being  represented  by  such  a  figure  as  this  : 

IV. 


It  will  be  noted  that  this  figure  is  identical  with  the  one 
marked  II.,  representing  the  particular  affirmative  propo¬ 
sition. 

These,  then,  are  the  four  assertions  possible  to  be  made 
concerning  any  class  of  things — the  universal  affirmative, 
the  particular  affirmative,  the  universal  negative,  and  the 
particular  negative.  If  the  major  premise  of  our  syllo¬ 
gism  is  a  universal  affirmative  proposition,  the  syllogism 
has  the  typical  form.  If,  however,  one  attempts  to  sub¬ 
stitute  for  this  universal  affirmative  a. particular  proposi¬ 
tion,  whether  affirmative  or  negative,  it  becomes  at  once 
impossible  for  the  conclusion  to  declare  that  the  minor 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


67 


term  falls  within  the  major.  The  middle  term  is  not 
wholly  included  in  the  major,  hence  no  matter  how  cer¬ 
tain  we  may  be  that  the  minor  falls  somewhere  in  the 
middle  term,  we  cannot  know  that  it  is  also  included  in 
the  major.  Some  of  Gibson’s  pictures  are  well  drawn,  we 
may  say,  and  this  is  one  of  Gibson’s  pictures  ;  but 
whether  it  is  one  of  the  number  well  drawn,  or  one  of 
the  number  not  well  drawn,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  This 
particular  picture  may  be  either  well  drawn  or  not  well 
drawn — one  cannot  tell  which.  Its  location  is  as  ambigu¬ 
ous  as  that  of  a  certain  paper,  a  mortgage,  let  us  say, 
which  one  asserts  to  be  somewhere  among  his  papers. 
So  much  we  are  glad  to  know,  but  where  are  the  papers  } 
If  the  reply  be,  “Oh,  some  of  them  are  in  my  desk  at  the 
office,  and  some  in  an  old  trunk  in  the  attic  at  home,  and 
some  in  the  safety  deposit  vault  in  the  bank,”  we  have 
not  received  much  information  as  to  the  exact  situation 
of  this  particular  paper.  The  minor  term,  this  mort¬ 
gage,  has  been  assigned  to  the  middle,  our  friend’s  pa¬ 
pers;  but  the  middle,  our  friend’s  papers,  has  not  been 
wholly  included  in  the  major  term,  say  his  desk  at  the 
office.  Hence  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  the  mortgage 
is  in  the  desk.  It  may  chance  to  be,  of  course,  but  one 
is  not  sure. 

A  difficulty  of  this  sort,  occasioned  by  the  use  of  a  par¬ 
ticular,  rather  than  a  universal,  proposition  for  the  major 
premise  of  the  syllogism,  may  be  remedied  by  narrowing 
the  middle  term  so  that  it  is  wholly  included  in  the  major. 
Thus,  instead  of  asserting  that  “  Some  novels  are  worth 
reading,”  one  may  venture  the  declaration  that  “All  nov¬ 
els  written  by  standard  authors  are  worth  reading.”  If 
the  novel  in  question  was  written  by  a  standard  author, 
we  are  then  entitled  to  conclude  that  it  is  worth  reading. 


68 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


If  we  attempt  to  use  a  universal  negative  proposition  as 
the  major  premise  of  a  syllogism,  our  attention  is  arrested 
by  the  fact  that  the  major  term  seems  to  stand  in  the 
major  premise  for  one  class  of  things,  and  in  the  conclu¬ 
sion  for  another.  For  instance,  if  we  say  : 

I.  None  of  Gibson’s  pictures  are  well  drawn. 

II.  This  is  one  of  Gibson’s  pictures. 

III.  This  picture  is  not  well  drawn. 

our  major  term  in  the  major  premise  represents  “  pictures 
that  are  well  drawn,”  and  in  the  conclusion  “pictures 
that  are  not  well  drawn.”  And,  further,  this  form  of 
proposition  fails  to  meet  the  requirement  of  our  typical 
syllogism,  that  its  major  premise  shall  include  the  middle 
term  in  the  major.  The  premise,  “  None  of  Gibson’s  pic¬ 
tures  are  well  drawn,  ”  rather  excludes  the  middle  from  the 
major  term,  negates  the  inclusion  of  the  one  in  the  other. 
But  let  us  see  whether  this  negative  proposition  may  not 
be  translated  into  an  equivalent  form  which  will  meet  the 
requirements  for  the  typical  syllogism.  Gibson’s  pictures, 
if  taken  as  a  whole,  must  be  either  well-drawn  or  not- 
well-drawn.  If  none  of  them  are  well  drawn,  all  of  them 
must  be  not-well-drawn.  Thus  we  are  furnished  at  once 
with  the  major  premise  we  need. 

I.  All  Gibson’s  pictures  are  not-well-drawn. 

II.  This  is  one  of  Gibson’s  pictures. 

III.  This  nicture  is  not-well-drawn. 

In  like  manner,  the  particular  negative  proposition, 
“  Some  of  Gibson’s  pictures  are  not-well-drawn,”  may  be 
reduced  to  our  typical  major  premise  when  once  its  mid¬ 
dle  term  has  been  so  narrowed  as  to  render  the  premise 
universal. 

These  varieties  of  simple  syllogism  may  thus  be  readily 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


69 


reduced  to  the  typical  form.  The  similar  transformation 
of  complex  syllogism  to  the  simple  type  we  must  now  con¬ 
sider. 

On  the  border-line  between  simple  and  complex  syllo¬ 
gisms  stand  those  syllogisms  whose  major  premises  contain 
a  temporal  clause,  and  thus  seem  to  be  complex  proposi¬ 
tions,  though  capable  of  easy  reduction  to  the  simple 
form  of  statement.  Such  a  syllogism  is  the  following  : 

I.  When  they  need  me,  I  must  go. 

II.  They  need  me  now. 

III.  I  must  go  now. 

If  one  attempt  to  analyze  out  from  this  conclusion  its 
minor  and  major  terms,  he  finds  the  minor  to  be  “  now  ” 
or  “  this  time,”  and  the  major  “  times  when  I  must  go.” 
The  middle  term  is,  then,  plainly  “  times  when  they  need 
me  ”  and  the  syllogism  reduces  to  the  typical  form  : 

I.  All  times  when  they  need  me  are  times  when  I 
must  go. 

II.  This  time  is  one  of  the  times  when  they  need  me. 

III.  This  time  is  one  of  the  times  when  I  must  go. 

A  syllogism  whose  major  premise  contains  a  temporal 
clause  can  usually  be  resolved  into  a  simple  syllogism  of 
the  required  form  by  recognizing  the  terms  for  the  time- 
elements  they  actually  are. 

By  similar  means,  all  complex  syllogisms  are  reduced  to 
the  typical  form.  Complex  syllogisms  are,  as  we  have 
noted,  syllogisms  whose  major  premises  are  complex  prop¬ 
ositions.  A  complex  proposition  is  defined  as  “  a  combi¬ 
nation  of  two  or  more  simple  propositions  in  one  sen¬ 
tence,  the  propositions  being  so  related  to  each  other  that 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  one  proposition  or  set  of  proposi¬ 
tions  depends  on  the  truth  or  falsity  of  the  other  proposi- 


70 


DEDUCTIl/E  REASONING. 


tion  or  set  of  propositions/’  *  If  the  two  propositions 
are  so  associated  in  the  sentence  that  the  truth  of  one  de¬ 
pends  on  the  truth  of  the  other,  the  proposition  is  called 
conjunctive,  and  the  same  name  is  applied  to  the  syllogism 
of  which  it  forms  the  major  premise.  Such  a  syllogism  is 
that  presented  early  in  the  chapter ;■(■ 

I.  If  silk  is  smooth  to  the  touch,  dust  will  not  cling 
to  it. 

II.  Silk  is  smooth  to  the  touch. 

III.  Dust  will  not  cling  to  it. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  two  statements  in  a  complex 
proposition  are  so  related  that  the  truth  of  one  depends 
on  the  falsity  of  the  other,  and  the  falsity  of  one  on  the 
truth  of  the  other,  the  proposition  is  called  disjunctive, 
and  the  same  name  is  applied  to  the  syllogism  in  which 
such  a  proposition  acts  as  major  premise.  One  of  the 
complex  syllogisms  before  quoted  is  of  the  disjunctive 
variety  : 

I.  Either  silk  is  smooth  to  the  touch,  or  woolen  is. 

II.  Silk  is  smooth  to  the  touch. 

III.  Woolen  is  not  smooth  to  the  touch. 

The  conjunctive  complex  syllogism  can  readily  be  re¬ 
duced  to  the  typical  form  by  analyzing  out  its  component 
terms.  Thus  the  syllogism 

I.  If  the  charge  be  true,  he  is  a  rascal. 

II.  The  charge  is  true. 

III.  He  is  a  rascal. 

presents,  as  its  minor  and  major  terms,  “  he”  and  “  ras¬ 
cals.”  “  He”  is  asserted  by  the  conclusion  to  belong 

*  Fowler,  T.,  Deductive  and  Inductive  Logic ^  Deductive  Logic^,^. 

113. 

t  Page  63. 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


71 


to  the  class  of  rascals;  but  on  what  grounds?  Simply 
because  all  men  of  whom  this  particular  charge  is  true  be¬ 
long  to  the  class  of  rascals.  The  syllogism,  then,  falls 
into  this  form  : 

1.  All  persons  of  whom  this  charge  is  true  are  rascals. 

11.  He  is  a  person  of  whom  this  charge  is  true. 

III.  He  is  a  rascal. 

In  the  same  fashion  may  be  reduced  the  syllogism, 

I.  Unless  the  strikers  have  conceded  something,  the 
company  ought  not  to  yield. 

TT.  The  strikers  have  conceded  nothing. 

HI.  The  company  ought  not  to  yield. 

Inquiry  into  the  reason  for  assigning  this  company  to 
the  class  of  companies  who  ought  not  to  yield  to  their 
striking  employees,  develops  the  middle  term  and  thus 
transforms  the  syllogism  : 

I.  Companies  to  whom  their  striking  employees  have 
conceded  nothing  are  companies  that  ought 
not  to  yield. 

II.  The  company  in  question  is  a  company  to  whom 
its  striking  employees  have  conceded  nothing. 

III.  The  company  in  question  is  a  company  that 
ought  not  to  yield. 

The  method  by  which  disjunctive  syllogisms  may  be 
moulded  into  the  typical  form  is  not  essentially  differ¬ 
ent.  The  major  premise  of  a  disjunctive  syllogism  may 
yield  four  different  conclusions;  as,  for  example: 

(a)  I.  Either  the  girl  is  stupid  or  she  is  lazy. 

H.  She  is  stupid. 

HI.  She  is  not  lazy. 

(d)  I.  Either  the  girl  is  stupid  or  she  is  lazy. 

II.  She  is  not  stupid. 

III.  She  is  lazy. 


72 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


{c)  I.  Either  the  girl  is  stupid  or  she  is  lazy. 

II.  She  is  lazy. 

III.  She  is  not  stupid. 

{d)  I.  Either  the  girl  is  stupid  or  she  is  lazy. 

II.  She  is  not  lazy. 

III.  She  is  stupid. 

A  single  one  of  these  syllogisms  will  serve  to  illustrate 
the  process  of  reduction  which  may  be  employed  in  the 
case  of  each.  We  note  that  this  girl  is  assigned  to  the 
class  of  girls  who  are  stupid  because  she  also  belongs  to 
the  class  of  girls  who  are  not  lazy,  but  who  (we  may 
suppose)  fail  to  do  satisfactory  work  in  their  classes;  and 
all  such  girls,  according  to  premise,  are  stupid  girls.  The 
syllogism,  then,  runs  as  follows: 

I.  All  girls  who  are  not  lazy,  but  who  fail  to  do  satis¬ 
factory  work,  are  stupid. 

II.  This  girl  is  not  lazy,  but  fails  to  do  satisfactory 
work. 

III.  This  girl  is  stupid. 

A  second  illustration  of  the  process  of  resolution  may 
be  seen  in  the  case  of  the  syllogism : 

I.  This  cloth  is  either  a  great  bargain  or  a  great  cheat. 

II.  It  is  not  a  great  cheat. 

III.  It  is  a  great  bargain. 

This  syllogism  takes  on  the  accredited  form,  if  thus 
rendered : 

I.  All  cloth  which  is  fabulously  low  in  price  and  is 
not  a  great  cheat  is  a  great  bargain. 

II.  This  cloth  is  fabulously  low  in  price  ana  not  a 
great  cheat. 

III.  This  cloth  is  a  great  bargain. 

Our  consideration  of  the  means  for  reducing  various 


DEDUCTirt  REASONING, 


73 


forms  of  syllogism  to  the  typical  order  may  yield  a  single 
precept  covering  all  such  cases.  From  examination  of  the 
conclusion,  the  minor  and  the  major  terms  may  be  de¬ 
rived.  Supply  the  appropriate  middle  term  from  the 
premises  of  the  syllogism,  and  group  these  three  terms  as 
in  the  typical  form.  If  the  inclusion  of  the  middle  in  the 
major  term  be  only  partial,  narrow  the  middle  term  until 
the  major  admits  ii;  if  the  inclusion  of  the  middle  term 
in  the  major  be  denied,  negate  the  major,  so  that  the 
middle  may  be  assigned  co  it. 

The  end  attained  by  the  reduction  of  all  syllogisms  to 
a  prescribed  form  is  the  readier  assurance  of  the  correct¬ 
ness  of  a  given  process  of  deductive  reasoning.  If  it  yield 
itself  to  the  mould  of  the  typical  syllogism,  one  may  be 
assured  of  its  validity  without  the  numerous  chances  of 
error  that  arise  when  syllogisms  of  varied  form  are  per¬ 
mitted.  One  is  thus  furnished  with  a  simple  test  to  which 
every  piece  of  deductive  reasoning  may  be  submitted. 

EXERCISES. 

1.  Turn  back  to  Exercise  3  in  Chapter  I.  What  de¬ 
ductive  inference  would  a  child  naturally  draw  when  he 
came  to  a  dark  corner  never  seen  before,  having  previously 
established  the  conclusion,  Dark  corners  are  not  danger¬ 
ous  ”  .?  Write  the  corresponding  deductive  inference  for 
each  of  the  inductive  conclusions  mentioned  in  Exercise 
3,  Chapter  I. 

2.  Note  any  deductive  conclusions  which  you  have 
reached  during  the  past  day  or  two.  Be  sure  that  you 
came  to  these  conclusions  by  reasoning,  not  by  direct  ex¬ 
perience  with  the  object  concerned.  Analyze  the  reason¬ 
ing  process  leading  to  each  conclusion  and  diagram  it  by 
the  method  of  circles. 


74 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


3.  Write  out  the  complete  syllogism  of  which  each  of 
the  following  propositions  is  the  conclusion.  Be  able  to 
identify  each  term  in  the  syllogism  and  state  its  exact  rela¬ 
tionship  to  every  other  term.  Name  each  proposition 
and  account  for  its  name.  Diagram  first  each  proposition 
and  then  the  whole  syllogism,  by  the  method  of  circles  as 
follows: 

I.  All  Sousa's  marches  are  bright  and  ‘‘  catching." 

II.  This  march  is  one  of  Sousa's  marches. 

III.  This  march  is  bright  and  “  catching." 

1.  Major  premise: 


II.  Minor  premise : 


f 


DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 


75 


III.  Conclusion: 


Whole  syllogism: 


76 


DEDUCTiyB  REASONING. 


{a)  That  bird  is  a  robin. 

{b)  This  toothache  can  be  cured  by  the  application  of 
iodine. 

(c)  This  plant  ought  to  be  watered  every  day. 

{d)  The - *  is  a  good  make  of  bicycle. 

(e)  This  man  is  a  German. 

{/')  That  child  ought  to  be  soundly  whipped. 

(g)  “  Madchen  is  a  neuter  noun. 

{h)  Mary  Lewis  is  a  lazy  girl. 

(z)  That  is  one  of  Joe  Rider’s  books. 

(y)  This  cake  is  unwholesome. 

{k)  This  magazine  article  (unread)  is  interesting. 

(0  Si  Hawkins  ought  to  help  raise  our  church  debt. 
{m)  Kipling  ought  to  write  more  Jungle  stories. 

{n)  Golf  is  an  easy  game  to  learn. 

(c>)  This  ship  is  seaworthy. 

(/)  Your  dress  needs  mending. 

(y)  Nancy  ought  not  to  go  out  in  this  rain. 

4.  Write  out  in  exact  syllogistic  form  the  reasoning  im¬ 
plied  in  the  following  statements.  Treat  each  syllogism 
as  directed  in  Exercise  3,  applying  all  the  tests  suggested 
on  page  62  of  the  text. 

{a)  “My  strength  is  as  the  strength  of  ten, 

Because  my  heart  is  pure.  ’  ’ 

{b)  “  Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the 
earth.  ’  ’ 

(c)  “  Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing:  therefore  get  wis¬ 
dom.” 

{d)  “I  know  I  shan’t  like  her.  I  hate  people  who  say 
‘  genteel.  ’  ” 

(^)  “  The  Lord  is  my  shepherd:  I  shall  not  want.” 


*  The  name  of  a  certain  make  should  be  inserted. 


DEDUCTIl^E  REASONING, 


77 


(y)  “  If  that  is  one  of  James  Hazzard’s  schemes,  I 
know  it  won’t  work.” 

5.  Reduce  each  of  the  following  syllogisms  to  the  typ¬ 
ical  form,  picturing  each  by  the  method  of  circles. 

{a)  I.  Most  long  poems  are  hard  to  read. 

II.  Paradise  Lost  is  a  long  poem. 

III.  Paradise  Lost  is  (will  prove)  hard  to  read. 

{b)  I.  When  spring  comes  there  are  flowers  in  the 
woods. 

II.  Spring  has  come  now. 

III.  There  are  flowers  in  the  woods  now. 

(c)  I.  If  she  threw  that  gift  awayj  she  never  cared  for  it. 
II.  She  threw  that  gift  away. 

III.  She  never  cared  for  it. 

(d)  I.  No  man  who  is  rude  to  his  inferiors  is  truly 

courteous. 

II.  This  man  is  rude  to  his  inferiors. 

III.  This  man  is  not  truly  courteous. 

(e)  I.  Either  the  act  was  one  of  thoughtlessness  or  it 

was  one  of  deliberate  unkindness. 

II.  It  was  not  an  act  of  deliberate  unkindness. 

III.  It  was  an  act  of  thoughtlessness. 

(y)  I.  If  you  want  me  to  like  your  friend,  you  must 
not  overpraise  him. 

II.  You  want  me  to  like  your  friend. 

III.  You  must  not  overpraise  him. 

(g)  I.  No  one  who  wishes  Mrs.  Bilby’s  favor  should 

decry  Whitman. 

II.  Sarah  wishes  Mrs.  Bilby’s  favor. 

III.  Sarah  should  not  decry  Whitman. 

(h)  I.  No  Catholic  eats  meat  on  Friday. 

II.  This  boy  is  a  Catholic. 

III.  He  does  not  eat  meat  on  Friday. 


78 


DEDUCTiyE  RE/)S0N1NG. 


(z)  I.  Either  you  will  leave  the  room,  or  I  shall. 

11.  You  will  not  leave  the  room. 

III.  I  shall  leave  the  room. 

(y )  I.  Many  ministers’  sons  are  unruly. 

II.  This  boy  is  a  minister’s  son. 

III.  This  boy  is  unruly 

(/^)  I.  Some  uneducated  men  achieve  great  success. 

II.  This  man  is  uneducated. 

III.  He  will  achieve  great  success. 

6.  Having  reduced  these  syllogisms  to  the  typical  form, 
determine  the  reasoning  process  which  has  given  rise  to 
each  major  premise.  Has  the  minor  premise  been  estab¬ 
lished  by  reasoning 

7.  Write  an  original  syllogism  in  which  the  major  prem¬ 
ise  is  a  particular  affirmative  proposition;  one  in  which 
the  major  premise  is  a  particular  negative  proposition; 
one  in  which  the  major  premise  is  a  universal  negative 
proposition;  one  in  which  the  major  premise  is  a  con¬ 
junctive  proposition;  one  in  which  the  major  premise  is  a 
disjunctive  proposition.  Resolve  each  syllogism  into  the 
typical  form. 

8.  Point  out  the  inductive  and  the  deductive  elements 
involved  in  the  reasoning  processes  leading  to  each  of  the 
following  conclusions.  What  is  the  exact  relation  of 
these  elements  to  each  other  ?  Write  out  a  complete 
analysis  of  the  reasoning  process  involved  in  each  case. 

(<2:)  Honesty  is  the  best  policy. 

(d)  The  best  is  always  the  cheapest. 

(c)  The  way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard. 

(d)  Strikes  aid  the  cause  of  labor. 

w  A  prospective  inheritance  is  a  curse  to  a  young  man. 

(/)  A  good  education  is  a  good  investment. 


DEDUCTiyE  REASONING.  79 

f 

(g)  The  serious  student  of  any  subject  should  have  a 
reading  acquaintance  with  several  languages. 

{h)  An  unselfish  person  is  the  cause  of  selfishness  in 
others. 

(**)  A  successful  author  is  an  enviable  person. 

(y)  An  advertisement  offering  genuine  diamonds  for  a 
dollar  apiece  is  a  fraud. 

{k)  A  friend  in  need  is  a  friend  indeed. 

9.  Point  out  the  inductive  and  deductive  elements  un¬ 
derlying  the  following  actions : 

{a)  A  person  looks  over  a  galley  of  proof,  decides  from 
the  corrections  already  made  upon  it  that  the  sign  “  /.c. 
in  the  margin  is  used  to  indicate  that  a  capital  should  be 
changed  to  a  small  letter,  and  therefore  writes  this  sign  in 
the  margin  opposite  a  word  which  is  wrongly  capitalized. 

{b)  One  walks  along  a  path  over  which  have  fallen  a 
number  of  curious-looking  burs  which  he  has  never  seen 
before.  He  notices  that  several  of  them  contain  nuts, 
and  hence  begins  deliberately  to  search  for  nuts  in  others. 

(c)  One  looks  over  a  large  collection  of  pictures  of  the 
Madonna,  and  pointing  to  one  he  has  never  seen  before, 
says:  “  That  is  surely  one  of  Botticelli's  Madonnas." 


CHAPTER  V. 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 

Our  study  of  deductive  reasoning  has  been,  we  must 
again  remind  ourselves,  for  an  end  beyond  itself.  There 
is  a  certain  interest  in  the  analysis  of  mental  processes 
merely  as  such;  but  to  gratify  this  interest  one  must  turn 
to  treatises  on  logic  and  psychology.  Our  concern  with 
the  typical  modes  of  deductive  reasoning  is  purely  practi¬ 
cal.  We  have  learned  to  know  them  for  one  purpose,  and 
one  only,  that  we  might  thereby  the  more  intelligently  set 
about  their  reproduction  in  the  minds  of  other  people. 
The  method  of  this  reproduction  we  are  now  ready  to  con¬ 
sider.  How  is  it,  we  may  inquire,  that  a  deductive  rea¬ 
soning  process,  such  as  those  we  have  lately  analyzed,  is 
initiated  in  the  mind  of  another  person  ?  How  is  one  led 
by  a  speaker  or  writer  to  accept  a  certain  deductive  con¬ 
clusion  ? 

We  have  noted  heretofore  that  a  conclusion  seldom 
gains  acceptance  by  its  mere  statement.  Rather,  the  whole 
train  of  reasoning  which  prepares  for  it  must  be  repeated, 
stage  after  stage,  in  the  hearer’s  mind,  before  the  conclu¬ 
sion  itself  finds  entrance.  You  are  not  disposed  to  con¬ 
cur  in  a  friend’s  judgment  that  a  certain  young  man 
must  be  the  cause  of  great  anxiety  to  his  parents,  with¬ 
out  some  knowledge  of  the  reasons  which  have  impelled 
him  to  this  belief.  “Why?”  you  would  ask  at  once, 

8o 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


8i 


withholding  your  acquiescence  until  the  answer  came: 
“Because  he  is  so  dissipated  and  extravagant.”  Once 
in  possession  of  this  clue,  however,  you  can  follow  the 
train  of  reasoning  from  its  starting-point  to  its  goal.  The 
major  premise  you  have  already  established  for  yourself 
inductively : 

I.  ‘  ‘  All  young  men  who  are  dissipated  and  extravagant 
cause  their  parents  great  anxiety.  ” 

Your  friend  has  asserted  the  minor  premise,  and  you 
accept  it  on  his  authority. 

II.  “  This  young  man  is  dissipated  and  extravagant.” 
Having,  therefore,  followed  the  process  of  reasoning  so 
far,  you  are  bound  to  arrive  at  the  conclusion : 

III.  “This  young  man  causes  his  parents  great  anx¬ 
iety.  ’  ’ 

The  acceptance  of  the  major  and  the  minor  premises 
compels  the  acceptance  of  the  conclusion. 

We  have  thus  traced  the  course  of  a  simple  deductive 
argument.  It  consists  merely  in  making  entrance  into 
the  hearer’s  mind  for  the  major  and  the  minor  premises 
of  the  syllogism  whose  conclusion  one  wishes  to  implant. 
These  once  admitted,  the  conclusion  is  thereby  allowed. 
But  the  process  of  gaining  admittance  for  the  major  and 
the  minor  premises  may  be  far  less  simple  than  in  the  case 
just  cited.  Let  us  suppose  an  argument  considerably 
more  complicated.  You  set  out,  we  will  say,  to  convince 
a  friend  that  one  particular  student  in  college  whom  you 
have  especially  noticed  is  homesick.  Simply  to  assert  this 
conclusion  will  not  establish  it  in  your  friend’s  mind. 
You  will  need  to  introduce  it  by  the  train  of  reasoning 
which  has  previously  led  you  to  the  conclusion.  Perhaps 
you  think  this  student  is  homesick  because  he  is  a  fresh- 


82 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


man  and  you  have  noticed  that  all  freshmen  are  homesick. 
In  that  case  you  would  need  only  to  convince  your  friend 
that  all  freshmen  kre  homesick  and  that  this  student  is  a 
freshman,  to  insure  the  acceptance  of  the  conclusion. 

But  it  may  be  that  your  friend  has  not  noticed  that  all 
freshmen  are  homesick,  or,  perhaps,  although  ready  to 
grant  this  generalization,  he  doubts  that  this  student  is  a 
freshman.  In  either  of  these  cases  it  will  be  necessary  to 
establish  these  propositions  before  your  friend  can  possibly 
arrive  at  your  conclusion,  that  this  student  is  homesick. 

If  he  doubts  that  all  freshmen  are  homesick,  you  must 
convince  him  by  citing,  one  after  another,  such  facts  as  have 
led  you  to  this  conclusion.  You  may  remind  him  that  he 
himself,  when  a  freshman,  was  homesick ;  that  you  were 
also  homesick  during  your  first  year  at  college;  that  half  a 
dozen  other  freshmen  in  your  class  were  homesick ;  and  so 
was  your  cousin  in  the  next  year’s  class,  and  your  brother 
the  year  after  that;  your  father  has  owned  that  he  was 
homesick  in  his  first  year  at  college,  and  your  sister  and  her 
friends  were  victims  of  the  same  malady.  In  this  year’s 
class  at  your  own  college  the  freshman  at  your  own  table 
is  homesick,  and  the  three  who  room  across  the  hall  from 
you,  and  the  freshman  who  lives  in  your  own'  town,  and 
the  freshman  next  to  you  in  the  glee  club,  and  half  a 
dozen  others  known  both  to  your  friend  and  to  yourself. 

Th«  major  premise  of  the  syllogism  you  wish  to  intro¬ 
duce  into  the  mind  of  your  friend  is  thus  established. 
But  if  the  minor  premise  demands  support  before  the 
hearer  is  inclined  to  admit  it,  you  must  devise  some 
method  of  making  entrance  for  it  also  into  his  mind. 
The  method  by  which  it  obtained  credence  with  you  will 
doubtless  at  once  suggest  itself.  How  have  you  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  this  student  is  a  freshman  ?  Possibly 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


83 


through  the  faith  that  all  students  who  have  never  been  in 
college  before  are  freshmen,  and  the  belief  that  this  stu¬ 
dent  has  never  been  in  college  before.  This  implies  a  syl¬ 
logism  supporting  the  minor  premise  of  your  first  syllo¬ 
gism,  and  running  somewhat  as  follows: 

I.  All  students  who  have  never  been  in  college  before 
are  freshmen. 

II.  This  student  has  never  been  in  college  before. 

III.  This  student  is  a  freshman. 

Perhaps  your  friend  is  ready  to  admit  the  truth  of  both 
the  major  and  the  minor  premises  of  this  second  syllo¬ 
gism,  which  means  that  he  has  already  come  to  each  of 
these  conclusions  himself;  but  in  case  he  has  not  done  so, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  induce  him  to  do  so,  by  proving 
either  the  major  premise  or  the  minor,  or  both.  The 
major  premise  is  readily  established  by  citing  several  in¬ 
stances  in  which  students  who  are  known  never  to  have 
been  in  college  before  have  been  assigned  to  the  freshman 
class.  The  minor  premise,  however,  needs  a  different 
method  of  proof.  What  has  led  you  to  suppose  that  this 
student  has  never  been  in  college  before  .?  Perhaps  it  is 
that  he  seems  ignorant  of  certain  typical  college  usages 
or  terms.  If  your  friend  asks,  “  How  do  you  know  he 
hasn’t  been  in  college  before  ”  you  will  be  likely  to  an¬ 
swer  at  once,  “Why,  he  doesn’t  know  what  ‘cut’ 
means.”  Your  reasoning  here  might  be  represented  by 
the  following  syllogism : 

I.  All  students  who  don’t  know  what  “  cut  ”  means 
have  never  been  in  college  before. 

II.  This  student  doesn’t  know  what  “  cut  ”  means. 

III.  This  student  has  never  been  in  college  before. 

If  your  friend  admits  these  premises,  he  is  of  course 


84 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


bound  to  accept  the  conclusion;  but  he  may  perhaps  go 
so  far  as  to  question  the  minor  premise.  “Are  you 
sure/’  he  asks,  “that  this  student  doesn’t  know  what 
‘cut’  means.?  What  makes  you  think  he  doesn’t?” 
And  to  this  inquiry  you  can  only  answer,  “  He  looked 
perfectly  bewildered  when  I  said  something  about  having 
a  ‘cut’  yesterday.”  Your  implied  argument  might  be 
syllogized  as  follows: 

I.  All  students  who  look  bewildered  when  one  speaks 
of  a  “  cut,”  don’t  know  what  “  cut  ”  means. 

II.  This  student  looks  bewildered  when  one  speaks  of 
a  “  cut.” 

III.  This  student  doesn’t  know  what  “  cut  ”  means. 

The  train  of  reasoning  which  underlies  such  an  argu¬ 
ment  as  this  is  evidently  far  more  complicated  than  any 
which  we  have  previously  analyzed;  or,  to  state  the  case 
perhaps  more  truly,  the  attempt  to  reproduce  it  in  the 
mind  of  another  person  has  brought  to  light  its  involved 
structure.  We  have  been  compelled  to  dig  below  the 
major  and  the  minor  premises  which  lead  directly  to  the 
conclusion,  and  disclose  their  hidden  foundations,  the 
reasoning  processes  which  support  them  as  they  support 
the  ultimate  conclusion.  We  have  thus  been  brought  to 
recognize  several  orders  in  a  train  of  reasoning,  that  part 
of  the  train  which  leads  directly  to  the  conclusion  being 
of  first  importance,  those  parts  which  support  any  element 
in  the  first  order  ranking  second  in  importance,  and  so  on 
to  the  order  furthest  removed  from  the  conclusion. 
Should  we  letter  these  orders,  to  distinguish  them  one 
from  another,  we  should  mark  with  the  letter  A  the  syl¬ 
logism  leading  to  the  conclusion  “  This  student  is  home¬ 
sick  ”;  with  the  letter  B  the  trains  of  reasoning  establish¬ 
ing  the  conclusions  “All  freshmen  are  homesick”  and 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


8S 


“This  student  is  a  freshman”;  with  the  letter  C  the 
arguments  proving  that  “All  students  who  have  never 
been  in  college  before  are  freshmen,”  and  that  “This 
student  has  never  been  in  college  before”;  and  with  the 
letter  D  the  reasoning  supporting  the  conclusion  “  This 
student  doesn’t  know  what  ‘  cut  ’  means.  ”  The  complete 
analysis  of  the  train  of  reasoning  underlying  this  argument 
would,  then,  be  as  follows: 

A.  I.  All  freshmen  are  homesicjc. 

II.  This  student  is  a  freshman. 

III.  This  student  is  homesick. 

B.  I.  What  is  true  of  (say)  fifteen  freshmen  is  true  of 

all  freshmen. 

II.  I.  One  freshman  is  homesick. 

2.  Another  freshman  is  homesick. 

3.  A  third  freshman  is  homesick,  etc. 

III.  All  freshmen  are  homesick. 

B.  I.  All  students  who  have  never  been  in  college  be¬ 

fore  are  freshmen. 

II.  This  student  has  never  been  in  college  before. 

III.  This  student  is  a  freshman. 

C.  I.  What  is  true  of  (say)  twenty  students  who  have 

never  been  in  college  before  is  true  of  all 
students  who  have  never  been  in  college 
before. 

II.  I.  This  student  who  has  never  been  in  college 
before  is  a  freshman. 

2.  Another  student  who  has  never  been  in  col¬ 
lege  before  is  a  freshman,  etc. 

III.  All  students  who  have  never  been  in  college  be¬ 
fore  are  freshmen. 

C.  I.  All  students  who  don’t  know  what  “  cut  ”  means 
have  never  been  in  college  before. 


86 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


II.  This  student  doesn’t  know  what  “  cut  ”  means. 

III.  This  student  has  never  been  in  college  before. 

D.  I.  All  ‘Students  who  look  bewildered  when  one 
speaks  of  a  “  cut,”  don’t  know  what  “  cut  ” 
means. 

II.  This  student  looks  bewildered  when  one  speaks 
of  a  “  cut.” 

III.  This  student  doesn’t  know  what  “  cut  ”  means. 

Such  a  complex  structure  as  this  we  find  in  the  majority 
of  arguments.  Seldom  is  an  argument  represented  by  a 
single  syllogism  whose  major  and  minor  premises  are 
both  accepted  unquestioningly  by  the  hearer.  Usually 
one  or  both  of  the  premises  leading  to  the  conclusion  of 
an  argument  must  be  supported  by  subsidiary  arguments. 
The  necessity  of  such  support  gives  rise  to  what  we  may 
call  the  complex  structure  of  an  argument,  taking  the 
name  from  the  complex  sentence  in  grammar.  Such 
structure  has  been  sufficiently  illustrated  by  the  argument 
establishing  the  conclusion  that  this  student  is  homesick. 
Here  only  one  syllogism  of  primary  importance  appears, 
all  the  other  syllogisms  depending  either  directly  or  in¬ 
directly  upon  it. 

A  different  type  of  structure  is  exemplified  by  such  an 
argument  as  the  following.  Imagine,  for  instance,  that 
one  wishes  to  establish  in  the  mind  of  another  person  the 
conclusion,  “  The  Ajax  is  a  good  make  of  wheel.”  It 
may  seem  to  him  at  first  thought  that  he  has  had  only  one 
reason  for  coming  to  this  conclusion,  but  when  he  wishes 
to  induce  another  person  to  the  same  conclusion  half  a 
dozen  cogent  reasons  define  themselves  in  his  conscious¬ 
ness.  He  believes  it  a  good  make  of  wheel  perhaps  be¬ 
cause  his  friend  Field,  a  judge  of  bicycles,  considers  it  so. 
This  judgment  is,  however,  corroborated  by  the  facts 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT, 


87 


that  it  is  made  by  a  reliable  house,  that  it  costs  a  fair 
price,  that  it  is  guaranteed  for  a  certain  time,  that  it  has  a 
good  reputation  among  wheelmen  generally,  and  that  its 
mechanism  seems  both  simple  and  strong.  Each  of  these 
reasons  might  be  separately  syllogized  as  follows: 

(1)  L  All  makes  of  wheel  that  Field  commends  are 

good. 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a  make  that  hheld  commends. 

III.  The  Ajax  is  a  good  make  of  wheel. 

(2)  I.  All  makes  of  a  reliable  house  are  good  makes  of 

wheel. 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a  make  of  a  reliable  house. 

III.  The  Ajax  is  a  good  make  of  wheel. 

(3)  I.  All  makes  of  wheel  that  cost  a  fair  price  are  good 

makes  of  wheel.;,  / 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a  make  that  costs  a  fair  price. 

III.  The  Ajax  is  a  good  make  of  wheel. 

(4)  I.  All  makes  of  wheel  that  are  guaranteed  for  a  cer¬ 

tain  time  are  good  makes  of  wheel. 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a  make  that  is  guaranteed  for  a  cer¬ 
tain  time. 

III.  The  Ajax  is  a  good  make  of  wheel. 

(5)  I.  All  makes  of  wheel  that  have  a  good  reputation 

among  wheelmen  generally,  are  good  makes  of 
wheel. 

II.  The  Ajax  has  a  good  reputation  among  wheel¬ 
men  generally. 

III.  The  Ajax  is  a  good  make  of  wheel. 

(6)  I.  All  makes  of  wheel  whose  mechanism  seems 

both  simple  and  strong  are  good  makes  of 
wheel. 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a  make  of  wheel  whose  mechanism 
seems  both  simple  and  strong. 


88 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


III.  The  Ajax  is  a  good  make  of  wheel. 

Here  we  have  six  different  reasoning  processes  all  lead¬ 
ing  to  the  same  conclusion.  Their  relations  to  each  other 
might  be  represented  by  such  a  diagram  as  the  following, 
in  which  all  the  trains  of  reasoning  converge  toward  the 
common  conclusion. 

(i)  (2)  (3) 


I.  All  makes  that 
Field  commends  are 
good  makes. 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a 
make  that  Field  com¬ 
mends. 


I.  All  makes  of  a 
reliable  house  are 
good  makes. 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a 
make  of  a  reliable 
house. 


I.  All  makes  that 
cost  a  fair  price  are 
good  makes. 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a 
make  that  costs  a  fair 
price. 


III.  The  Ajax  is  a 
good  make  of  wheels. 


I.  All  makes  whose 
mechanism  seems 
both  simple  and 
strong  are  good 
makes. 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a 
make  whose  mechan¬ 
ism  seems  both  simple 
and  strong. 


I.  All  makes  that 
have  a  good  reputa¬ 
tion  among  wheelmen 
are  good  makes. 

II.  The  Ajax  has 
a  good  reputation 
among  wheelmen. 


I.  All  makes  that 
are  guaranteed  for  a 
certain  time  are  good 
makes. 

II.  The  Ajax  is  a 
make  that  is  guaran¬ 
teed  for  a  certain 
time. 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


89 


Each  of  these  six  processes  of  reasoning  is  independent 
of  all  the  others.  Each  pursues  its  way  to  the  conclusion 
without  reference  to  any  other.  Each  is  a  train  of  reason¬ 
ing  of  primary  importance  to  the  conclusion,  leading  to 
it  directly.  If  we  wished  to  indicate  their  respective  or¬ 
ders,  then,  as  we  did  in  the  complex  argument  before 
analyzed,  we  should  be  obliged  to  letter  each  of  the  six 
syllogisms  A.  This  type  of  argument  we  may  term  the 
compound  type,  after  the  analogy  of  the  compound  sen¬ 
tence,  which  is  also  made  up  of  a  group  of  co-ordinate 
elements. 

We  have,  then,  these  two  main  types  of  structure  for 
deductive  argument,  the  complex  and  the  compound. 
The  complex  deductive  argument  consists  of  a  single  syl¬ 
logism  which  leads  to  the  ultimate  conclusion  of  the  ar¬ 
gument,  with  a  series  of  dependent  syllogisms  supporting, 
either  directly  or  indirectly,  some  member  of  the  primary 
syllogism.  The  compound  deductive  argument  consists 
of  two  or  more  co-ordinate  syllogisms,  each  leading  to 
the  same  conclusion.  These  two  types  may  be  combined, 
as  when  a  compound  argument  is  made  up  of  several  com¬ 
plex  arguments.  Thus  the  argument  to  prove  that  the 
Ajax  is  a  good  make  of  wheel  might  need  to  strengthen 
any  one  of  its  constituent  syllogisms  by  supporting  either 
its  major  or  its  minor  premise.  Thus  the  argument 
would  become  an  aggregate  of  co-ordinate  arguments, 
each  complex  in  structure. 

We  have  thus  considered  the  method  by  which  a  de¬ 
ductive  conclusion  is  established  in  the  mind  of  another 
person.  If,  however,  one  should  wish  rather  to  dislodge 
such  a  conclusion,  a  different  problem  is  presented  us. 
Let  us  suppose  the  case  *  in  which  a  classmate  says  to 

*  Cited  in  Chapter  I. 


90 


DEDUCTiyE  ARGUMENT, 


you,  “  Fred  Ostrander  is  a  good  fellow  to  put  in  for  treas¬ 
urer  of  the  class.”  You  may  be  inclined  to  accept  this 
statement,  thinking  well  of  Fred  Ostrander  and  having  no 
decided  preference  for  any  other  candidate.  If,  however, 
you  are  strongly  of  the  opinion  that  Fred  Ostrander  ought 
not  to  be  elected  treasurer  of  the  class,  and  that  John 
Olsen  ought,  you  will  doubtless  attempt  to  displace  from 
your  classmate’s  mind  his  belief  that  “  Fred  Ostrander  is 
a  good  fellow  to  put  in  for  treasurer,”  in  order  to  make 
room  for  the  conclusion  that  John  Olsen  ought  rather  to 
be  chosen  for  that  office.  Let  us  inquire  what  methods 
are  open  to  you  in  this  case. 

When  the  refutation  of  inductive  argument  was  in 
question,  we  noted  two  ways  in  which  a  conclusion 
might  be  overthrown :  directly,  by  disproving  the  facts  on 
which  it  rested,  and  indirectly,  by  establishing  a  contra¬ 
dictory  conclusion.  It  may  be  that  we  shall  find  these 
two  methods  available  also  for  the  refutation  of  deductive 
argument. 

When  one  of  your  classmates  asserts  that  “  Fred  Os¬ 
trander  is  a  good  fellow  to  put  in  for  treasurer,”  you  are 
altogether  likely  to  reply, “  I  don’t  think  so  at  all.  He 
would  be  a  very  poor  candidate.  He  hasn’t  the  smallest 
notion  of  business.”  This  is  plainly  an  attempt  at  the 
indirect  method  of  refutation.  You  do  not  directly  at¬ 
tack  the  foundatioris  of  your  opponent’s  belief,  but  en¬ 
deavor  to  establish  a  conclusion  directly  antagonistic  to 
his — the  conclusion  that  Fred  Ostrander  is  a  poor  candi¬ 
date  for  class  treasurer.  This  conclusion  you  support  by 
the  following  premises:  “Boys  who  have  no  business 
ability  are  poor  candidates  for  the  treasurership  of  our 
class,”  and  “Fred  Ostrander  has  no  business  ability.” 
It  may  be,  however,  that  this  new  conclusion  will  not  be 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT, 


91 


able  unaided  to  dislodge  the  old  one  from  the  mind  of 
your  opponent,  who  mutters  defiantly:  “Well,  anyhow, 
he’s  a  first-rate  fellow  and  the  boys  want  to  give  him  an 
office.”  Upon  this  you  are  doubtless  moved  to  retort, 
“  I  don’t  call  a  cad  like  Ostrander,  who  cribs  all  his 
prose  exercises,  a  ‘first-rate  fellow.’  And  I’d  like  to 
know  who  ‘  the  boys  ’  are  who  want  so  much  to  give  him 
an  office.  Jim  Weaver  and  Roy  Martin,  probably.  But 
the  class  isn’t  yearning  in  that  direction,  I  can  tell  you.” 
Here  you  have  instinctively  made  use  of  the  direct  method 
of  refutation. 

The  syllogism  implicit  in  one  of  your  classmate’s  argu¬ 
ments  might  be  formulated  as  follows: 

I.  All  first-rate  fellows  are  good  candidates  for  treas¬ 
urer  of  our  class. 

II.  Ostrander  is  a  first-rate  fellow. 

III.  Ostrander  is  a  good  candidate  for  treasurer  of  our 
class. 

The  conclusion  of  this  syllogism  you  undertake  to  re¬ 
fute  by  destroying  the  minor  premise.  If  Ostrander  is 
not  a  first-rate  fellow,  it  is  evident  that  the  conclusion 
cannot  stand.  And  you  attempt  to  show  that  he  is  not  a 
first-rate  fellow,  by  arguing  that  fellows  who  crib  their 
Latin  prose  are  not  first-rate  fellows,  and  that  Ostrander 
does  this.  Thus  you  have  refuted  the  conclusion  that 
Fred  Ostrander  is  a  good  candidate  for  treasurer  of  the 
class,  so  far  as  this  conclusion  is  dependent  on  the  syllo¬ 
gism,  whose  minor  premise  is  “  Fred  Ostrander  is  a  first- 
rate  fellow.  ” 

But  you  have  still  to  overthrow  the  same  conclusion, 
as  supported  by  the  premises  “  All  fellows- to  whom  the 
class  wishes  to  give  an  office  are  good  candidates  for  treas- 


92 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


urer/'  and  “  Fred  Ostrander  is  a  fellow  to  whom  the  class 
wishes  to  give  an  office/’  The  method  of  refutation  is 
here  as  it  was  before,  the  overthrow  of  the  minor  premise. 
“  Fred  Ostrander  is  not  a  fellow  to  whom  the  class  as  a 
whole  wishes  to  give  an  office,”  you  assert.  This  asser¬ 
tion  will  doubtless  need  proof,  which  you  can  supply  by 
citing  the  statements  of  several  representative  members  of 
the  class  to  the  purport  that  they,  individually,  do  not 
wish  to  give  Fred  Ostrander  an  office.  Having  thus  estab¬ 
lished  inductively  the  conclusion  that  the  class  as  a  whole 
does  not  wish  to  give  Fred  Ostrander  an  office,  you  have 
disproved  the  minor  premise  of  your  opponent’s  syllogism 
and  hence  the  conclusion  which  rests  upon  it. 

You  might,  if  you  had  chosen  to  do  so,  have  destroyed 
the  conclusion  of  your  antagonist  by  discrediting  the 
major  rather  than  the  minor  premises  of  his  argument. 

‘  ‘  All  first-rate  fellows  are  not  necessarily  good  candidates 
for  the  treasurer  of  our  class,”  you  might  argue;  and 
“  All  fellows  to  whom  the  class  wishes  to  give  an  office 
are  not  invariably  good  candidates  for  treasurer  of  our 
class.”  Or,  if  you  wished,  you  might  have  disproved  both 
the  major  and  the  minor  premise  of  each  syllogism.  To 
withdraw  from  the  conclusion  either  one  of  its  supports  is, 
however,  sufficient  to  cause  its  fall.  If  both  premises  are 
discredited,  the  overthrow  may  be  more  complete,  but  is 
not  more  certain. 

It  will  be  noted  that  in  disproving  the  major  or  the 
minor  premise  of  a  syllogism,  either  the  direct  or  the  indi¬ 
rect  method  of  refutation  may  be  used.  These  premises 
are  themselves,  as  we  have  lately  discovered,*  the  out¬ 
come  of  certain  trains  of  reasoning,  and  hence  may  be 
overthrown  by  any  method  suitable  for  refuting  a  conclu- 

*  See  pp.  82-86. 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT, 


93 


sion.  Thus,  in  disproving  the  minor  premise,  “  Fred 
Ostrander  is  a  first-rate  fellow,'’  one  might  show  either 
that  the  foundations  of  this  belief  are  false,  and  hence  the 
belief  itself  cannot  stand,  or  that  the  contradictory  conclu¬ 
sion,  “  Fred  Ostrander  is  not  a  first-rate  fellow,’'  is  true, 
wherefore  the  original  statement  cannot  be  true.  Either 
the  direct  or  the  indirect  method  of  refutation,  or  both, 
may,  then,  be  used  to  disprove  any  premise  of  a  deduct¬ 
ive  syllogism. 

But  besides  the  discrediting  of  one  premise  in  a  deduct¬ 
ive  syllogism,  there  is  another  method  of  withdrawing  its 
supports  from  a  given  conclusion.  Sometimes  one  may 
directly  disprove  a  conclusion  whose  premises  are,  taken 
as  isolated  propositions,  impossible  to  controvert.  This 
possibility  is  illustrated  by  the  following  syllogism : 

I.  All  sophomores  study  history.- - - 

II.  This  student  studies  history. 

III.  This  student  is  a  sophomore. 

The  conclusion  here  is  evidently  untrustworthy,  but  not 
because  either  the  major  or  the  minor  premise  is  false. 
Each  of  the  premises  may  be  granted  true.  All  sopho¬ 
mores  do  take  history  and  this  student  also  takes  history, 
but  it  does  not  therefore  follow  that  he  is  a  sophomore. 
Somewhere  in  the  logical  process  there  is  a  flaw  which  lays 
the  conclusion  open  to  refutation,  though  not  on  the 
ground  of  the  falsity  of  either  premise. 

Before  we  discuss  this  defect  in  the  argument,  however, 
let  us  summarize  our  previous  conclusions  as  to  possible 
methods  of  refutation.  Deductive  argument,  we  have 
found,  may  be  refuted  by  either  the  direct  or  the  indirect 
method.  The  indirect  method,  as  in  the  case  of  induc¬ 
tion,  is  that  of  establishing  a  conclusion  contradicting 


94 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


that  to  be  overthrown.  The  direct  method  consists  in 
demonstrating  the  falsity  of  the  conclusion  to  be  over¬ 
thrown,  by  revealing  some  defect  in  the  syllogism  of  which 
it  is  the  issue.  Such  a  defect  is  technically  called  a  fal¬ 
lacy.  We  may  pause  at  this  point  to  define  the  term. 
A  fallacy  is  any  imperfection  in  reasoning  which  invali¬ 
dates  its  conclusion,  whether  that  imperfection  rests 
in  the  logical  process  itself  or  in  the  correspondence  of 
any  of  its  data  with  fact.  A  fallacy  of  the  second  sort  is 
called  a  material  fallacy,  since  it  has  to  do  with  content 
or  material  rather  than  with  form;  a  fallacy  of  the  first 
kind  is  termed  a  logical  fallacy,  because  it  is  a  defect  in 
the  reasoning  process  rather  than  in  the  subject-matter. 
The  essential  difference  between  these  two  species  of  fal¬ 
lacy  may  be  further  defined  by  the  statement  that  where  a 
logical  fallacy  is  involved,  the  conclusion  does  not  legiti¬ 
mately  follow  from  the  premises,  hence  it  fails  to  establish 
itself;  while  a  material  fallacy  exists  when,  although  the 
conclusion  follows  legitimately  from  the  premises,  at  least 
one  of  the  premises  is  false,  and  hence  the  conclusion  must 
be  discredited. 

Direct  refutation  of  a  deductive  argument  consists, 
then,  in  revealing  a  fallacy  in  the  argument;  this  fallacy 
being  either  material  or  logical.  Material  fallacies  can  be 
detected  only  by  exact  analysis  of  the  argument  of  an  op¬ 
ponent  and  sharp  scrutiny  of  its  premises  to  see  whether 
they  are  in  themselves  true  propositions.  The  discovery 
of  logical  fallacies  in  an  opponent’s  argument  may  be 
aided  by  the  study  of  the  chief  types  of  logical  fallacy. 

These  are  four  in  number,  if  we  restrict  ourselves  to  the 
varieties  most  likely  to  be  encountered:  (i)  the  undistrib¬ 
uted  middle,  (2)  the  illicit  process  of  either  major  or 
minor  term,  (3)  ignoratio  elenchi,  or  the  irrelevancy  of  the 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT, 


95 


premises,  and  (4)  petitio  pi'incipii,  begging  the  question, 
or  arguing  in  a  circle,  as  it  is  variously  called. 

The  fallacy  of  the  undistributedjuiddle  consists  in  the 
failure  of  the  major  premise  to  perform  its  function  in  the 
syllogism,  namely,  the  complete  inclusion  of  the  middle 
term  in  the  major,  as  in  the  following  syllogism: 

I.  Some  uneducated  men  are  successful  lawyers. 

II.  This  man  is  an  uneducated  man. 

III.  This  man  is  a  successful  lawyer. 

•v 

Here  the  middle  term  “  uneducated  men  ’’  is  partly  in¬ 
cluded  in  and  partly  excluded  from  the  major  term  “  suc¬ 
cessful  lawyers.'’  Not  all  uneducated  men  belong  to  the 
class  of  successful  lawyers ;  only  some  of  them  do.  And 
whether  this  particular  uneducated  man  belongs  to  that 
portion  of  the  class  of  uneducated  men  who  are  success¬ 
ful  lawyers;  or  to  that  portion  who  are  unsuccessful  law¬ 
yers,  or  good  teamsters,  or  poor  tailors,  or  excellent  street- 
venders,  or  admirable  factory  hands,  or  what  not,  cannot 
be  declared  on  the  basis  of  the  major  premise,  “  Some  un¬ 
educated  men  are  successful  lawyers.  ’ ' 

The  form  of  syllogism  in  which  this  fallacy  openly 
appears  has  been  previously  discussed,*  so  that  we  need 
not  now  dwell  longer  upon  it.  We  shall  need,  however, 
to  examine  one  of  its  less  overt  manifestations,  as  in  the 
syllogism  suggested  some  pages  back.f 

I.  All  sophomores  study  history. 

II.  This  student  studies  history. 

III.  This  student  is  a  sophomore. 

At  first  one  only  feels  dimly  that  there  is  something 


*  See  Chapter  IV.,  p.  67. 


t  Page  93. 


96 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


wrong  with  this  syllogism.  When,  however,  he  examines 
it  closely,  he  notes  that  the  middle  and  the  major  terms 
have  changed  their  accustomed  places  in  the  major 
premise.  From  the  conclusion  he  knows  that  the  major 
term  is  “sophomores.’'  He  would  therefore  expect  to 
find  the  major  premise  “  All  students  who  study  history 
are  sophomores.”  But  instead  it  reads  “All  sophomores 
are  students  who  study  history.”  That  is,  instead  of  the 
major  term’s  including  the  middle,  the  middle  includes 
the  major.  And  we  have  such  a  diagram  as  this: 

Major  premise: 


If  we  had  set  out  to  reach  the  conclusion  “  This  student 
studies  history,”  this  major  premise  would  answer  our 
purpose.  But  we  cannot  draw  the  conclusion  that  this 
student  is  a  sophomore  merely  because  all  sophomores 
study  history  and  this  student  also  studies  history.  As 
Mr.  Fowler  says  of  such  reasoning,  “  We  might  argue 
quite  as  legitimately  that,  because  both  men  and  cats  are 
animals,  all  men  are  cats  !  ”  *  Or,  to  parallel  more 


*  Deductive  Logic ^  p.  144. 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


97 


closely  the  syllogism  under  discussion,  we  are  equally  en-- 
titled  to  believe  that  because  all  hens  are  bipeds,  and 
John  Jones  is  a  biped,  therefore  John  Jones  is  a  hen. 
The  major  premise  in  each  of  these  cases,  instead  of  in¬ 
cluding  the  middle  term  in  the  major,  includes  the  major 
in  the  middle  term.  This  means,  of  course,  that  a  part 
only  of  the  middle  term  falls  within  the  major,  a  large 
portion  of  the  middle  extending  out  on  every  side  of  the 
major.*  When  one  says  that  all  sophomores  take 
history,  one  says  virtually  that  some  people  who  take 
history  are  sophomores.  Other  students  may  also  study 
history;  all  we  know  from  the  premise  is  that  some  of 
the  people  who  study  history  in  a  certain  college  are 
sophomores. 

If  the  premise  be  framed  in  this  way,  it  is  easy  enough 
to  see  that  this  case  falls  under  the  fallacy  of  the  undis¬ 
tributed  middle.  Not  all  the  middle  term  is  included  in 
the  major — only  some  people  who  study  history  are  soph¬ 
omores — hence  the  minor  term,  this  particular  student, 
although  belonging  somewhere  in  the  class  of  people 
who  study  history,  cannot  certainly  be  adjudged  to 
fall  in  that  particular  portion  of  the  class  of  people 
who  study  history  which  is  coincident  with  the  class  of 
sophomores. 

The  term  “  undistributed  middle  ’’  is  perhaps  somewhat 
misleading,  inasmuch  as  distribution  commonly  implies  to 
us  the  division  of  the  object  distributed  and  the  assign¬ 
ment  of  various  parts  of  it  to  different  quarters.  This 
meaning  of  the  word  must  be  wholly  set  aside  in  using 
the  term  logically,  for  here  “  distribution  ”  signifies  simply 
the  assignment  of  one  whole  term  or  class  of  things  to 
another.  The  middle  term  is  said  to  be  “  distributed  ’  ’ 


*  See  diagram, 'page  96. 


98 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


when  the  whole  class  which  it  represents  is  included 
within  the  major;  undistributed,  when  only  a  part  of  it  is 
so  included.  Hence  the  fallacy  of  the  undistributed  mid¬ 
dle  consists,  as  was  said  at  the  beginning,  in  the  failure  to 
assign  the  whole  of  the  middle  to  the  major  term.* 

A  second  form  of  logical  fallacy  which  very  easily  es¬ 
capes  detection  is  that  called  the  illicit  process  of  either 
the  major  or  the  minor  term  in  a  syllogism.  The  conclu¬ 
sion  of  a  syllogism  may,  we  have  seen,  be  invalidated  be¬ 
cause  of  a  certain  failure  on  the  part  of  the  middle  term. 
The  same  result,  we  shall  see,  may  come  about  when 
either  the  major  or  the  minor  term  is  at  fault.  In  this 
case  the  erring  term  appears  in  the  conclusion  in  a  form 
essentially  different  from  that  which  it  bore  in  the  major 
or  minor  premise.  This  difference  may  be  one  of  quan¬ 
tity  or  of  quality.  The  minor  term,  which  in  the  minor 
premise  was  particular,  or  undistributed,  appears  in  the 
conclusion  as  universal,  or  distributed.  Or,  the  major 
term,  affirmative  in  the  major  premise,  becomes  negative 
in  the  conclusion.  For  instance,  one  argues  that  because 
all  athletic  girls  are  healthy  and  this  girl  is  not  athletic, 
therefore  this  girl  is  not  healthy.  A  moment’s  thought 
brings  the  fallacy  to  light.  All  athletic  girls  may  indeed 

be  healthy,  but  so  are  some  girls  who  are  not  athletic. 

^  * 

The  fact  that  this  girl  is  not  included  in  the  small  class  of 
athletes  is  no  proof  that  she  may  not  fall  somewhere  in 
the  larger  class  of  healthy  girls,  which  class  embraces  and 

*  One  does  not  commonly  hear  of  the  undistributed  minor  term,  yet 
it  is  evident  that  this  also  may  be  distributed  or  undistributed  with  ref¬ 
erence  to  the  middle.  That  is,  it  may  be  wholly  or  only  partly  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  middle  term.  But  since  the  location  of  the  minor  term 
does  not  serve  to  fix  that  of  any  other  term,  the  importance  of  its  dis¬ 
tribution  or  non -distribution  is  comparatively  small. 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


99 


surrounds  the  class  of  athletes.*  The  major  term,  which 
in  the  major  premise  was  “  girls  who  are  healthy,''  has, 
in  the  conclusion,  suddenly  become  transformed  into  the 
term  “girls  mTo  are  not  healthy,"  representing  the  class 
to  which  this  particular  girl  is  forthwith  assigned.  To 
redeem  this  fallacy,  the  major  premise,  instead  of  being 
“  All  athletic  girls  are  healthy, "  must  become  its  converse, 
“  All  girls  who  are  not  althletic  are  not  healthy,"  from 
which,  with  the  minor  premise,  “  This  girl  is  not  ath¬ 
letic,"  follows  legitimately  the  conclusion  “This  girl  is 
not  healthy." 

The  syllogism  as  first  presented,  involved  the  illicit 
process  of  the  major  term.  This  fallacy  is  not,  however, 
usually  so  patent  as  in  the  syllogism  which  we  have  dis¬ 
cussed,  but  is  more  often  veiled  in  some  such  statement 
as  the  following:  Any  calling  that  demands  all  a  man's 
energies  in  return  for  a  bare  subsistence  limits  his  mental 
growth.  None  of  the  learned  professions  demand  all  a 

*  Note  the  diagram  ; 


This  particular  girl  may  fall,  as  represented,  within  the  class  of 
healthy  girls,  though  not  included  in  the  class  of  athletic  girls.  ; 


lOO 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


man’s  energies  in  return  for  a  bare  subsistence;  hence 
none  of  the  learned  professions  limit  a  man’s  mental 
growth.  To  detect  a  fallacy  in  such  a  case  as  this  it  is 
necessary  first  to  attempt  to  reduce  the  argument  to  the 
typical  form  of  the  syllogism,  as  follows: 

I.  Callings  which  demand  all  a  man’s  energies  in  re¬ 
turn  for  a  bare  subsistence  limit  his  mental 
growth. 

II.  The  learned  professions  do  not  demand  all  of  a 
man’s  energies  in  return  for  a  bare  subsistence. 

III.  The  learned  professions  do  not  limit  a  man’s 
mental  growth.* 

When  thus  formulated,  the  change  of  the  major  term, 
from  an  affirmative  quality  in  the  major  premise  to  a 
negative  quality  in  the  conclusion,  becomes  evident. 

A  similar  change  may  take  place  in  the  minor  term,  so 
+hat  it  comes  in  the  conclusion  to  be  a  larger  or  a  smaller, 
or  in  some  way  a  different  term  from  that  which  it  was  in 
the  minor  premise;  as  for  instance,  when  it  is  reasoned 
that  all  Byron’s  poems  must  be  uninteresting  because 
some  of  them  are  long  and  all  long  poems  are  unin?erest- 
ing.  This  change  of  the  minor  term  from  a  particular  to 
a  universal  is  so  patent  that  it  seems  quite  unlikely  to  oc¬ 
cur  in  serious  reasoning;  but  it  often  appears  in  such  typ¬ 
ical  arguments  as  the  following :  “I  won’t  ask  another 
literary  lion  to  my  receptions.  Some  of  them  are  so  rude, 
and  rude  people  I  will  not  countenance,  no  matter  how 
famous  they  are.”  The  conclusion  that  all  literary  lions 
belong  to  the  class  of  rude  pqople  whom  the  speaker  will 
not  countenance,  following  from  the  minor  premise  that 

*  The  student  should  diagram  each  of  the  fallacious  syllogisms  dis¬ 
cussed  in  the  chapter. 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


lOI 


some  literary  lions  are  rude,  exhibits  again  a  transforma¬ 
tion  of  the  minor  term  from  particular  to  universal. 

It  is  plain  that  this  fallacy  of  the  illicit  process,  either 
in  major  or  in  minor  term,  results  from  failure  to  observe 
the  law  *  that  each  term  should  be  phrased  in  precisely  the 
same  way  throughout  the  syllogism.  If  care  is  taken  to 
obey  this  regulation  strictly,  the  fallacy  of  the  illicit  proc¬ 
ess  becomes  impossible. 

The  fallacy  of  ignoratio  elenchi  or  irrelevancy  consists  in 
arguing  toward  a  conclusion  other  than  the  one  to  be  es¬ 
tablished  ;  as  when  one  girl  asserts  that  Annie  Brown 
ought  really  to  leave  school — she  can  never  pass  her  exam¬ 
inations;  and  another  cries  ecstatically,  “Oh,  but  she 
does  her  hair  so  divinely  !  ”  This  is  a  crude  case  of  the 
irrelevant  argument,  but  it  shows  the  same  incongruity 
between  premises  and  conclusion  as  is  exhibited  in  the 
subtler  forms,  where,  “  For  instance,  instead  of  proving 
that  ‘  this  prisoner  has  committed  an  atrocious  fraud, '  you 
prove  that  ‘  the  fraud  he  is  accused  of  is  atrocious  ’ ;  instead 
of  proving  (as  in  the  well-known  tale  of  Cyrus  and  the  two 
coats)  ‘  that  the  taller  boy  had  a  right  to  force  the  other 
boy  to  exchange  coats  with  him,  ’  you  prove  that  ‘  the  ex¬ 
change  would  have  been  advantageous  to  both  ’ ;  instead 
of  proving  that  ‘  a  man  has  not  the  right  to  educate  his 
children  or  to  dispose  of  his  property  in  the  way  he  thinks 
best,  ’  you  show  that  the  way  in  which  he  educates  his 
children  or  disposes  of  his  property  is  not  really  the  best  ; 
instead  of  proving  that  ‘  the  poor  ought  to  be  relieved  in 
this  way  rather  than  in  that,  ’  you  prove  that  ‘  the  poor 
ought  to  be  relieved.’  ”  f 

*  See  page  62. 

\  Whately,  Elements  of  Logic,  Bk.  III.,  Of  Fallacies,  ^  15.  See 
also  Fowler,  Deductive  Logic,  p.  149;  Jevons,  Lessons  in  Logic,  p. 

178,  etc. 


102 


DEDUCTiyE  ARGUMEMT. 


This  fallacy  is  variously  classified  with  material  and  with 
logical  fallacies;  but  it  should  doubtless  fall  into  the  latter 
category.  The  premises  may  be  quite  true  in  themselves, 
but  between  them  and  the  conclusion  which  the  reasoner 
expects  to  attain  by  means  of  them  there  is  a  great  gulf 
fixed.  They  lead  to  a  conclusion,  indeed,  but  not  to  the 
one  aimed  at.  There  is,  then,  a  flaw  in  the  reasoning 
process  itself — a  hiatus,  a  lack  of  correspondence  between 
premises  and  conclusion.  These  premises  do  not  logic¬ 
ally  issue  in  this  conclusion,  however  insistently  they  may 
be  urged  as  proofs  of  it.  * 

The  discovery  of  this  fallacy  depends,  it  is  evident, 
upon  such  a  careful  analysis  of  the  opponent’s  argument 
that  the  exact  relation  of  every  argument  to  the  ultimate 
conclusion  becomes  plain,  together  with  any  lack  of  rela¬ 
tion,  if  such  there  be.  Once  detected  as  contributing  to 
a  conclusion  other  than  the  one  it  assumes  to  support,  an 
opponent’s  argument  is  speedily  set  aside. 

That  fallacy  known  as  petitio  principii,  begging  the  ques¬ 
tion,  or  reasoning  in  a  circle,  is  a  fallacy  in  which  not 
one  syllogism,  but  a  complex  of  syllogisms  is  concerned. 
Where  this  fallacy  occurs,  the  ultimate  conclusion  of  the 
argument  is  supported  by  a  premise  which  the  conclusion 
itself  has  previously  aided  in  establishing.  A  popular  in¬ 
stance  of  such  fallacy  is  the  case  in  which  one  is  urged  to 
vote  with  the  Republican  party  because  its  platform  is 
sound,  the  soundness  of  its  platform  being  demonstrated 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  avowed  by  the  Republican  party. 

*  Whately  and  Jevons  call  this  fallacy  that  of  the  “  Irrelevant-Con¬ 
clusion,”  but  it  is  perhaps  quite  as  truly  the  premises  that  are  irrele¬ 
vant.  The  arguer  aims,  indeed,  at  the  conclusion  demanded  by  the  sit¬ 
uation.  The  premises  by  which  he  attempts  to  reach  it  are,  however, 
essentially  unrelated  to  it,  and  hence  incapable  of  establishing  it. 


DEDUCTIVE  ,  ,  103 

,  ,  ,  [  I  i  t  h 

The  circular  course  of  the  reasonihig  fus  hte  sufficiently 
evident,  as  it  is  in  the  following  argument :  ‘  ‘  Love  of  vir¬ 
tue  must  be  innate  in  men,  for  otherwise  it  would  not  be, 
as  it  is,  universal.  It  is  not  necessary  to  prove  the  uni¬ 
versality  of  this  passion,  for  it  springs  up  untaught  in  the 
hearts  of  all  men  with  the  very  beginnings  of  intelligence.  ’’ 

In  this  last  reasoning,  the  ultimate  conclusion,  that  the 
love  of  virtue  is  innate,  is  supported  by  the  premises,  “  All 
qualities  that  are  universal  are  innate,’'  and  “  The  love  of 
virtue  is  universal  but  to  prove  this  minor  premise,  it 
is  alleged  that  all  qualities  which  are  innate  are  universal 
and  that  the  love  of  virtue  is  innate — the  ultimate  conclu¬ 
sion  thus  serving  as  the  minor  premise  to  support  the 
minor  premise  which  supports  the  ultimate  conclusion.* 
Such  a  circular  process  of  reasoning  is  usually  disguised 
by  a  longer  series  of  dependent  syllogisms,  but  when  ana¬ 
lyzed  out  the  same  return  upon  itself  is  observed  as  in  the 
illustrations  given,  f 

To  point  out  a  fallacy  in  the  argument  of  an  opponent 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  to  discredit  the  conclusion  of  that 
argument.  It  is,  therefore,  of  the  greatest  importance  for 
refutation  that  the  student  should  be  able  readily  to  detect 
fallacies,  whether  material  or  logical,  in  the  reasoning  of 
another  person.  While  remembering  this,  however,  it 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  same  readiness  aids  also, 
when  directed  against  the  student’s  own  arguments,  in 
rendering  them  proof  against  attack.  The  student  will  do 
well,  after  formulating  any  argument,  to  attempt  its  refu¬ 
tation  by  every  means  in  his  power.  This  will  reveal  to 

*  The  student  should  write  out  the  two  syllogisms  and  see  clearly 
their  exact  relation  to  each  other. 

f  Further  illustrations  may  be  found  in  Whately,  Elements  of  Logic ^ 

Bk.  III.,  §  13. 


104 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


him  its  weak  points  and  enable  him  to  strengthen  them 
before  an  opponent  can  anticipate  him. 

In  concluding  the  subject  of  deductive  refutation,  it 
should  be  said  that  here,  as  with  induction,*  both  the  direct 
and  indirect  methods  should,  if  possible,  be  used.  One 
is  seldom  quite  sufficient  without  the  other,  though  some 
arguments  lend  themselves  to  one  much  more  readily  than 
to  the  other.  To  show  that  because  of  some  fallacy  in 
the  reasoning,  either  material  or  logical,  the  conclusion  of 
your  opponent  cannot  stand,  and  then  that  the  contradic¬ 
tory  conclusion  is  true,  constitutes  the  most  complete  and 
effective  method  of  refutation. 

EXERCISES. 

I.  Analyze  completely,  lettering  the  various  orders,  the 
reasoning  process  underlying  each  of  the  following  argu¬ 
ments.  Criticize  the  structure  of  each  in  the  light  of  this 
analysis. 

(a)  The  importance  of  Hawaii  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is 
a  stopping-place  in  a  great  waste  of  waters.  It  is  a  ren¬ 
dezvous  for  coal  and  supplies  of  all  kinds  for  those  who 
go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships.  We  have  now,  and  have  had 
from  the  earliest  times,  every  facility  of  this  nature  that  we 
could  possibly  desire.  If  we  had  owned  the  islands,  we 
could  not  have  had  greater  privileges  there,  although  our 
responsibilities  would  have  been  greater.  In  fact,  Amer¬ 
icans  have  governed  the  islands  during  most  of  the  time 
since  we  have  had  possession  of  the  Pacific  coast.  We 
have  been  spared  the  trouble  of  fortifying  them  and  keep¬ 
ing  a  large  naval  force  in  those  waters  and  settling  their 
private  quarrels.  Since  1875,  we  have  had  a  treaty  with 
the  islands  which  expressly  forbids  them  to  grant  any  lien, 

*  See  Chapter  III.,  pp.  32-3. 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


105 

power,  or  control  over  any  part  of  their  territory  to  any 
other  government.  But  if  there  had  been  no  such  treaty, 
we  should  still  have  forbidden  any  such  lien,  power,  or 
control.  As  other  Nations  have  respected  our  wishes  in 
the  matter  in  the  past,  they  would  respect  them  in  the 
future,  all  the  more  as  our  power  to  command  respect  in¬ 
creases  with  revolving  years.  The  situation  heretofore  has 
been  exactly  to  our  liking,  and  we  may  well  ask  why  it 
should  be  changed. — Nation,  56:  75. 

(3)  It  is  safe  to  suppose  that  one  half  of  the  talk  of  the 
world  on  subjects  of  general  interest  is  waste.  But  the 
other  half  certainly  tells.  We  know  this  from  the  change 
in  ideas  from  generation  to  generation.  We  .‘^ee  that 
opinions  which  at  one  time  everybody  held  became  ab¬ 
surd  in  the  course  of  half  a  century — opinions  about  relig¬ 
ion  and  morals  and  manners  and  government.  Nearly 
every  man  of  my  age  can  recall  old  opinions  of  his  own, 
on  subjects  of  general  interest,  which  he  once  thought 
highly  respectable,  and  which  he  is  now  almost  ashamed 
of  having  ever  held.  He  does  not  remember  when  he 
changed  them,  or  why,  but  somehow  they  have  passed 
away  from  him.  In  communities  these  changes  are  often 
very  striking.  The  transformation,  for  instance,  of  the 
England  of  Cromwell  into  the  England  of  Queen  Anne, 
or  of  the  New  England  of  Cotton  Mather  into  the  New 
England  of  Theodore  Parker  and  Emerson,  was  very 
extraordinary,  but  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  say  in  de¬ 
tail  what  brought  it  about,  or  when  it  began.  Lecky  has 
some  curious  observations,  in  his  History  of  Rationalism, 
on  these  silent  changes  in  new  beliefs  apropos  of  the  disap¬ 
pearance  of  the  belief  in  witchcraft.  Nobody  could  say 
what  had  swept  it  away,  but  it  appeared  that  in  a  certain 
year  people  were  ready  to  burn  old  women  as  witches. 


io6 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGVMETir, 


and  a  lew  years  later  were  ready  to  laugh  at  or  pity  any 
one  who  thought  old  women  could  be  witches.  “  At  one 
period/'  says  he,  “  we  find  every  one  disposed  to  believe 
in  witches;  at  a  later  period  we  find  this  predisposition 
has  silently  passed  away.”  The  belief  in  witchcraft  may 
perhaps  be  considered  a  somewhat  violent  illustration,  like 
the  change  in  public  opinion  about  slavery  in  this  coun¬ 
try.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  talk — some¬ 
body’s,  anybody’s,  everybody’s  talk — by  which  these 
changes  are  wrought,  by  which  each  generation  comes  to 
feel  and  think  differently  from  its  predecessor.  No  one 
ever  talks  intimately  about  anything  without  contributing 
something,  let  it  be  ever  so  little,  to  the  unseen  forces 
which  carry  the  race  on  to  its  final  destiny.  Even  if  he 
does  not  make  a  positive  impression,  he  counteracts  or 
modifies  some  other  impression,  or  sets  in  some  train  of 
ideas  in  some  one  else,  which  helps  to  change  the  face  of 
the  world.  So  I  shall,  in  disregard  of  the  great  laudation 
of  silence  which  filled  the  world  in  the  days  of  Carlyle,  say 
that  one  of  the  functions  of  an  educated  man  is  to  talk; 
and  of  course  he  should  try  to  talk  wisely. — E.  L.  Godkin : 
The  Duty  of  the  Educated  Man.  Forum,  17  :  50. 

(c)  That  a  suspected  law-breaker  can  do  harm  to  the 
community  while  in  jail  is  not  generally  supposed.  He 
is  thought  by  most  people  who  give  the  matter  a  thought, 
simply  to  eat,  sleep,  and  wait  until  his  trial  comes  off, 
and  if  convicted  of  an  offense  punishable  by  imprisonment 
in  jail,  to  eat,  sleep,  and  wait  his  turn  out.  Some  few 
persons  suppose  perhaps  that  he  regrets,  repents,  and  re¬ 
solves  to  break  the  laws  no  more.  These  are  all  grave 
mistakes.  In  jail  a  prisoner  is  either  teaching,  learning, 
or  plotting  mischief.  If  he  chances  to  be  an  old  offender, 
he  loves  to  recount  his  dangers,  escapes,  and  successes; 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT, 


107 


tell  stories  of  magnificent  crimes  perpetrated  by  himself  or 
his  acquaintances,  how  they  were  accomplished,  and 
paints  the  allurements  connected  with  them  in  glowing 
colors.  As  in  the  old  Sunday-school  books  the  good'boy 
always  died  and  the  bad  one  survived,  so  with  his  stories, 
the  “cop,”  detective,  and  judge  are  outwitted  and  the 
smart  and  tricky  hero  goes  free  and  bags  the  boodle. 
Many  a  young  man,  arre.^^ted  as  a  tramp  or  for  some  petty 
misdemeanor,  through  such  influence  is  lured  on  to  a  life 
of  crime. — Levi  L.  Barbour:  Jails  and  Prisons. 

{d')  Again*  as  the  malefactor  is  sent  to  prison  to  pro¬ 
tect  society  from  his  depredations,  he  should  be  held  so 
long,  and  only  so  long,  as  imprisonment  for  protection  is 
necessary.  That  is  the  way  we  manage  an  insane  man 
and  protect  society  from  him.  A  man  is  sent  to  the  hos¬ 
pital  in  a  like  way.  He  is  not  sentenced  to  an  insane 
asylum  or  a  hospital  for  sixty  days  or  ten  years,  according 
to  the  gravity  of  his  malady.  He  is  kept  there  so  long  as 
his  ailments  require,  and  when  restored  to  soundness  he 
is  restored  to  act  his  own  volition,  and  to  society.  This 
is  the  only  reasonable  and  logical  position  the  State  can 
occupy  when  it  assumes  to  deprive  a  man  of  his  liberty. 
The  idea  that  the  state  punishes  for  the  sake  of  avenging 
a  wrong  is  absurd.  The  state  is  not  directly  injured  when 
Peter  robs  Paul.  .  It  is  directly  injured  only  in  cases  of 
treason,  smuggling,  bribing  public  officers,  squandering 
the  public  domain,  and  the  like  public  wrongs.  The  ob¬ 
ject  of  the  state  is  not  vengeance,  not  to  inflict  suffering, 
not  to  get  even  for  the  offense  committed. — Levi  L.  Bar¬ 
bour  :  Jails  and  Prisons. 

2.  Fix  in  your  own  mind  upon  some  person  whom  you 
would  like  to  convince  of  the  truth  of  one  of  the  following 
conclusions.  Plan  out  the  argument  by  which  you  will 


io8 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


attempt  to  establish  the  conclusion  in  his  mind,  setting 
down  the  syllogism  which  leads  directly  to  the  conclusion, 
and  all  syllogisms  which  seem  to  you  necessary  to  estab¬ 
lish  any  member  of  the  primary  syllogism,  lettering  each 
syllogism  so  as  to  show  its  relation  to  the  conclusion  you 
wish  to  establish.  Then  write  the  argument,  analyzing  it 
after  you  have  finished  and  noticing  in  what  respects  your 
analysis  differs  from  your  plan. 

{a)  Bicycle  paths  should  be  constructed  at  public  ex¬ 
pense. 

(<5)  Night  schools  should  be  maintained  by  all  large 
cities. 

(c)  The  education  of  girls  should  be  different  from  that 
of  boys. 

(d)  The  summer  vacation  should  be  shortened. 

(e)  Examinations  should  be  done  away  with. 

(/)  Arctic  exploration  does  not  pay. 

{g)  Rich  women  (or  men)  have  no  right  to  hold  busi 
ness  positions. 

3.  Determining  upon  a  hearer  as  in  Exercise  2,  write 
compound  argument,  inducing  your  hearer  to  accept  one 
of  the  following  conclusions  by  urging  as  many  reasons  as 
you  can  for  believing  in  its  truth.  Plan  the  argument  be¬ 
fore  writing  it,  and  analyze  it  when  it  is  finished. 

(a)  Smoking  (chewing  gum,  eating  rapidly,  using  slang, 
or  any  similar  habit)  is  a  bad  habit. 

(3)  Children  (age  limited  in  any  way  desired)  should  be 
given  a  regular  allowance  for  pocket-money. 

(c)  The  Santa  Claus  myth  should  not  be  told  to  chil¬ 
dren. 

(d)  High-school  commencements  ought  to  be  abol¬ 
ished. 

(e)  Cheating  in  examinations  is  wrong. 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT.  109 

{/)  The  practice  of  “tipping’'  should  be  discounte¬ 
nanced  in  this  country. 

4.  Choose  any  deductive  argument  which  you  have 
already  written,  and,  viewing  it  impartially  as  if  it  had 
been  written  by  another  person,  refute  it  as  completely  as 
you  can.  State  at  the  end  the  methods  you  have  used. 

5.  Report  any  argument  and  its  refutation  which  you 
have  lately  heard  in  conversation.  What  method  of  refu¬ 
tation  was  used  .?  How  successful  was  it  }  Could  you 
have  made  the  refutation  stronger  or  more  complete  .? 
How  ?  Could  you  have  refuted  the  refutation  }  How  .? 

6.  Find  the  refutation  of  some  argument  in  one  of  your 
text-books  (excluding  text-books  of  logic  and  of  argu¬ 
mentation).  Note  the  methods  used.  Is  the  refutation 
conclusive  ?  If  not,  how  could  it  be  made  so 

7.  Choose  a  subject  for  deductive  argument  on  which 
you  feel  strongly  but  have  never  before  written.  State 
clearly  the  conclusion  toward  which  you  argue,  and  sup¬ 
port  this  conclusion  as  strongly  as  you  know  how.  Then 
exchange  arguments  with  another  member  of  the  class  who 
has  defended  a  different  conclusion  (preferably  one  bear¬ 
ing  on  quite  another  subject),  and,  after  carefully  analyz¬ 
ing  his  argument,  refute  it  thoroughly. 

8.  Point  out  and  name  all  the  fallacies  involved  in  the 
reasoning  underlying  the  following  actions  or  arguments, 
first  reducing  the  reasoning  to  syllogistic  form. 

{a)  The  maid,  in  putting  a  room  to  rights,  laid  a  spool 
of  ‘  ‘  dental  floss  ’  ’  in  the  work-basket  among  the  sewing- 
spools. 

{b)  Mathematical  study  undoubtedly  improves  the  rea¬ 
soning  powers,  but  as  the  study  of  logic  is  not  mathemat¬ 
ical  study,  we  may  infer  that  it  does  not  improve  the 
reasoning  powers. 


tio 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


(f;)  Colonel  Alexander  Gardner,  during  a  stay  in  Asia, 
M^as  suspected  of  being  a  Russian  spy.  The  Khan  of 
Khiva  deputed  three  learned  men  who  had  traveled  over 
half  the  world  to  determine  this  point  by  examining  him. 
This  is  the  abstruse  and  terrific  examination  with  which 
they  were  satisfied.  “  What  are  you  ?  ”  they  asked.  “  An 
American.”  Still  they  were  suspicious;  and  one  man,  a 
very  enlightened  scholar,  offered  as  a  crowning  test,  this 
deep  and  conclusive  geographical  question:  “  Could  you 
go  by  land  from  America  to  England  ?  ”  “  No,”  was  the 
prompt  reply,  and  the  questioner,  as  much  delighted  at 
his  own  superior  learning  as  at  the  traveler’s  integrity, 
declared  that  he  was  convinced.  This  was  an  American 
indeed. — Youths^  Companion,  Oct.  27,  1898.  From  Col. 
Alexander  Gardner’s  Soldier  and  Traveller. 

(</)  If  our  rulers  could  be  trusted  always  to  look  to  the 
best  interests  of  their  subjects,  monarchy  would  be  the 
best  form  of  government;  but  they  cannot  be  trusted; 
therefore  monarchy  is  not  the  best  form  of  government. 

{e)  “  How  do  you  know  you’re  mad  .?  ”  (asked  Alice). 
“To  begin  with,”  said  the  cat,  “a  dog’s  not  mad. 
You  grant  that  ?  ” 

“  I  suppose  so,”  said  Alice. 

“  Well,  then,”  the  cat  went  on,  “  you  see  a  dog  growls 
when  it’s  angry  and  wags  its  tail  when  it’s  pleased.  Now, 
1  growl  when  Tm  pleased,  and  wag  my  tail  when  Tm 
angry.  Therefore  I’m  xnad. ” — Lewis  Carroll:  Alice  in 
Wonderland. 

(_/*)  “  Two  days  wrong,”  sighed  the  hatter  [looking  at 
his  watch],  “  I  told  you  butter  wouldn’t  suit  the 
works  !  ”  he  added,  looking  angrily  at  the  March  Hare. 

“  It  was  the  best  butter,”  the  March  Hare  meekly  re¬ 
plied. — Lewis  Carroll :  Alice  in  Wonderland. 


DEDUCTIVE  ARGUMENT. 


Ill 


{g)  All  journalists  of  the  ‘yellow’  school  attacked  the 
measure  vigorously.  This  writer  could  be  at  once  classi¬ 
fied  as  belonging  to  the  ‘  yellow  ’  journalists,  because  his 
article  strongly  opposed  the  measure. 

[h)  “  Dora,  my  darling  !  ” 

“  No,  I  am  not  your  darling.  Because  you  musl  be 
sorry  that  you  married  me,  or  else  you  wouldn’t  reason 
with  me  !  ’  ’  returned  Dora.  Dickens :  David  Copperfield, 
ch.  xlviii. 


(/)  I’m  sure  he  hasn’t  a  generous  disposition,  for  his  ^ 
small ;  and  you  know  the  saying  is  that  people  , 


ears  are  so 
with  large  ears  are  generous. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 

Hitherto  we  have  discussed  only  that  deductive  reason¬ 
ing  whose  conclusions  have  reference  to  the  present.  We 
have  inferred  that  a  policy  of  territorial  expansion  ought 
to  be  adopted  by  the  United  States  now,  that  Silas  Jones 
is  at  this  writing  a  poor  accountant,  or  that  student  gov¬ 
ernment  is  not  at  present  desirable  for  a  certain  college, 
rather  than  that  a  free-silver  plank  will  be  inserted  in  the 
next  Democratic  platform,  or  that  the  war  with  Spain  was 
brought  about  by  the  sensational  newspapers  in  America. 
We  must  now  turn,  however,  to  those  deductive  reason¬ 
ings  which  look  forward  and  to  those  which  look  back¬ 
ward  in  time. 

The  form  of  deduction  by  which  one  is  enabled  to  pre¬ 
dict  that  a  certain  event  will  happen  in  the  future  because 
under  similar  circumstances  this  event  always  does  hap¬ 
pen,  is  called  a  /nbrz*  reasoning.  The  significance  of  the 
name  will  disclose  itself  in  our  further  analysis  of  the  proc¬ 
ess. 

The  basis  of  a  priori  reasoning  is  our  sense  of  an  un¬ 
varying  sequence  of  circumstances  or  events.  The  sun 
will  rise  to-morrow  morning  because  it  rises  every  morn¬ 
ing.  My  father  will  not  allow  me  to  attend  this  ball  be¬ 
cause  he  never  does  allow  me  to  attend  balls.  We  have 
noticed  several  times  that  during  a  storm  a  flash  of  light- 

112 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


”3 


ning  is  followed  by  a  clap  of  thunder,  and  by  induction 
establish  the  sequence:  “  A  flash  of  lightning  during  a 
storm  is  always  followed  by  a  clap  of  thunder/’  When, 
therefore,  we  see  a  certain  flash  of  lightning,  we  listen  for 
the  clap  of  thunder  which  we  expect  to  follow  it.  Or. 
having  observed  in  several  instances  that  a  severe  frost  in 
the  early  autumn  has  been  followed  by  the  blighted 
appearance  of  garden  plants,  we  conclude  that  this  catas¬ 
trophe  always  follows  a  hard  frost,  and  are  thereupon  able, 
if  there  has  been  a  hard  frost,  to  infer  that  the  plants  in 
the  garden  will  be  blighted.  All  weather-signs  involve 
this  process  of  reasoning.  “  A  red  sunset  is  followed  by 
a  fair  day,”  is  an  induction  whence  may  be  derived  an  a 
priori  conclusion  as  to  the  weather  for  to-morrow. 
“  Rain  before  seven  stops  before  eleven,”  is  often  regarded 
as  sufficient  basis  for  an  assurance  that  the  coming  after¬ 
noon  will  be  clear. 

Such  practical  a  priori  judgments  as  these  cited  consti¬ 
tute  a  very  large  per  cent  of  our  every-day  inferences.  We 
are  called  upon  almost  hourly  to  determine,  if  not  what 
the  weather  is  to  be,  then  what  result  is  likely  to  follow 
from  a  certain  event  or  a  certain  course  of  conduct,  or 
what  a  man  of  a  given  character  will  probably  do  in  given 
circumstances.*  In  fact,  we  are  obliged  to  reason  in  this 

*  This  seems  to  be  a  case  in  which  one  event  does  not  follow 
another,  but  an  event  or  action  is  caused  by  a  certain  disposition  or 
character.  We  may,  however  if  we  like,  reduce  this  sequence  to  the 
typical  form  by  regarding  the  first  member  of  the  series  not  as  the  char¬ 
acter  in  question,  but  as  the  acquisition  or  formation  of  that  character, 
this  action  being  always  followed  by  a  certain  course  of  conduct  under 
certain  circumstances.  Such  a  view,  quite  defensible  philosophically, 
has  the  further  advantage  of  enabling  us  to  throw  this  case  of  a  priori 
reasoning  into  the  form  which  serves  for  the  rest. 

It  may  here  be  noted  that  the  only  form  which  really  does  cover  all 


1 14  A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


way  whenever  we  attempt  to  adjust  present  actions  to  fu¬ 
ture  ends.  If  we  wish,  for  instance,  to  secure  exact 
knowledge  of  any  subject,  we  determine  how  to  act  in 
order  to  do  so,  by  referring  to  a  previously  noted  sequence 
of  events,  as  unvarying  as  any  in  nature.  “  Intelligent 
and  continuous  application  to  any  subject  for  a  sufficient 
time  is  followed  by  exact  knowledge  of  that  subject.’' 
Having  recalled  this  sequence,  we  are  now  enabled  to 
identify  its  second  member  with  the  event  desired ;  and 
take  measures  toward  securing  the  first  member  of  the 
series,  sure  that  the  second  will  follow — because  it  always 
does  follow  the  first.  Or,  if  the  sequential  relation  be¬ 
tween  saving  money  and  having  it  to  spend  at  a  future 
time  be  noted,  one  is  able  to  secure  the  second  member  of 
the  series  by  making  sure  of  the  first. 

And  contrariwise:  we  often  find  ourselves  able,  by  the 
aid  of  a  reasoning,  to  avoid  an  undesirable  conse¬ 

quent  by  forbearing  its  antecedent.  If  we  don’t  want  the 
headache,  we  refrain  from  eating  the  rest  of  the  box  of 
candy;  if  we  don’t  want  to  be  considered  illiterate  by 
strangers,  we  take  pains  with  our  business  letters;  if  we 
don’t  want  a  worn-out  body,  we  see  to  it  that  the  first 
member  of  the  series — spending  more  energy  than  is  sup- 


varieties  of  a  priori  reasoning  is  that  which  is  based  upon  a  sequence 
of  time.  The  relation  of  cause  and  effect  (wholly  aside  from  the  fact 
that  the  philosophers  are  nowadays  assuring  us  that  no  such  relation 
exists,  events  which  seem  to  be  so  related  being  in  fact  only  adjacent 
sections  in  a  continuous  movement  of  things)  does  not,  so  far  as  we 
know,  obtain  between  such  phenomena  as  those  of  a  red  sunset  and 
the  fair  day  which  follows.  The  sunset  does  not  cause  the  fairness  of 
the  ensuing  day,  though  prophesying  it.  For  this  reason^  as  well  as 
for  the  philosophical  one  indicated  above,  it  seems  best  to  regard  the 
merely  temporal  sequence,  which  includes  the  casual,  as  the  basis  of  a 
priori  reasoning. 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT.  115 

plied — is  inhibited.  Knowing  that  one  thing  always  fol¬ 
lows  another,  we  can  bring  about  or,  within  limits,*  pre¬ 
vent  the  second  by  appropriate  action  as  regards  the 
first. 

The  typical  form  of  this  reasoning  may  now  be  outlined 
as  follows:  Event  A  is  always  followed  by  event  B.  This 
event  (or  circumstance)  is  A.  Therefore  this  event  (or 
circumstance)  will  be  followed  by  B.  Syllogistically  this 
process  reduces  to  the  following: 

I.  All  events  of  class  A  belong  to  the  class  of  events 
that  are  followed  by  event  B. 

II.  This  event  is  an  event  of  class  A. 

III.  This  event  belongs  to  the  class  of  events  that  are 
followed  by  event  B. 

Or,  more  simply: 

I.  A  is  followed  by  B. 

II.  This  event  is  A. 

III.  This  event  is  followed  by  B. 

The  syllogism,  it  will  be  noted,  does  not  in  its  wording 
involve  the  future  tense.  The  conclusion  says  not  that 
this  event  will  be  followed  by  B,  but  only  that  this  event 
belongs  to  the  class  of  events  which  are  always  followed 


*  It  is  truer  to  say  that  one  can  refuse  to  incite  the  second  event  in 
the  series  by  forbearing  the  first.  The  second  may  appear  in  the  wake 
of  quite  a  different  event — one  may  have  a  headache  even  if  he  doesn’: 
eat  the  rest  of  the  box  of  candy.  But  he  surely  will  have  a  headache 
if  he  does  eat  the  candy;  that  much  one  is  sure  of  from  past  experi. 
ence.  In  both  the  positive  and  the  negative  uses  of  a  priori  reasoning 
to  determine  action  only  one  means  of  securing  or  avoiding  the  second 
memoer  is  suggested.  There  are  doubtless  in  each  case  others,  but 
they  involve  different  series  and  must  be  separately  considered. 


Ii6  A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


by  B.*  Strictly  speaking,  this  is  the  proper  form  for  the 
conclusion,  inasmuch  as  it  retains  the  original  phrasing 
of  the  major  term.  The  future  implication  arises  solely 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  person  inferring.  Standing 
as  he  does  at  a  point  of  time  when  event  B  has  not  yet 
appeared,  he  says  naturally,  not  “  B  does  follow  this  par¬ 
ticular  event,”  but  “  B  will  follow  ”  it.  We  must,  then, 
though  starting  with  the  idea  that  a  priori  reasoning  leads 
to  a  future  conclusion,  recognize  the  fact  that  the  futurity 
of  the  conclusion  resides  not  in  its  technical  form,  but  in 
the  point  of  view  of  the  person  reaching  the  conclusion. 

The  name  a  priori  may  perhaps  be  regarded  as  having 
reference  to  the  datum  given  from  which  the  inference  is 
drawn.  In  a  priori  reasoning  the  conclusion  is  reached 
by  inference  from  an  event  occurring  before  the  event  to 
be  inferred,  as  in  the  correlative  a  posteriori  reasoning,  f 
the  inference  is  from  an  event  which  has  occurred  after  the 
event  to  be  determined.  Both  names  have  significance, 
then,  as  indicating  the  location  of  the  grounds  of  inference 
with  reference  to  the  event  inferred.  If  these  grounds  are 
previous  to  the  event  inferred,  the  reasoning  is  called  a 
priori;  if  succeeding  it,  a  posteriori. 

An  a  /rwrz*  conclusion,  like  any  other  conclusion,  may 

*  The  fact  that  a  priori  reasoning  is  often  called  reasoning  from 
probability  (and  the  argument  based  on  it  argument  from  probability) 
doubtless  has  some  relation  to  the  form  of  the  conclusion.  This  par¬ 
ticular  event,  so  the  conclusion  tells  us,  belongs  to  the  class  of  things 
which  are  always  followed  by  event  B.  It  will,  therefore,  probably  be 
followed  by  event  B,  though  this  cannot  be  predicted  with  perfect 
certainty.  Like  all  logical  conclusions,  that  of  a  priori  reasoning 
lacks  absolute  certitude,  and  this  lack  is  only  emphasized  by  its  future 
reference.  Hence  this  reasoning,  more  than  any  other,  may  seem  to 
justify  the  name  “  reasoning  from  probability.” 

f  See  Chapter  VII. 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT, 


I17 

be  introduced  into  the  mind  of  another  person  by  repro¬ 
ducing  in  his  mind  the  train  of  reasoning  which  has  led 
to  it.  The  sequence  must  first  be  established  and  then  the 
event  or  circumstance  in  question  must  be  identified  with 
the  first  member  of  the  sequence,  before  the  hearer  or 
reader  can  accept  the  conclusion  that  the  second  member 
will  follow  this  particular  event. 

In  the  refutation  of  a  priori  reasoning  one  may  use  the 
direct  method  alone  or  the  direct  and  the  indirect  together. 
One  may  attack  the  conclusion  directly  by  destroying  the 
sequence  or  by  showing  that  the  event  in  question  is  not 
identical  with  the  first  member  of  that  sequence.  Or,  hav¬ 
ing  thus  discredited  the  conclusion,  he  may  completely 
overthrow  it  by  proving  that  an  event  quite  the  opposite 
will  follow  ihe  event  in  question.  Thus,  if  one  wishes  to 
dislodge  from  another  person’s  mind  the  conclusion  that 
the  application  of  iodine  to  an  aching  tooth  will  be  fol¬ 
lowed  by  relief,  he  proves  by  numerous  instances  that  the 
application  of  iodine  is  not  habitually  followed  by  the  re¬ 
lief  of  an  aching  tooth  and,  still  further,  may  attempt  to 
establish  the  fact  that  such  application  is  usually  followed 
by  a  more  acute  aching,  and  that,  therefore,  it  will  be  so 
followed  in  this  particular  case.  Or,  if  it  is  desirable  to 
disprove  the  conclusion  that  allowing  Robbie  to  do  the 
thing  he  has  begged  to  do  will  be  followed  by  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  the  habit  of  teasing,  one  may  undertake  to 
overthrow,  not  the  impregnable  major  premise,  “Weak 
yielding  to  a  child’s  importunities  is  followed  by  his  ac¬ 
quisition  of  the  habit  of  teasing,”  but  the  more  amenable 
minor,  “  This  is  a  case  of  weak  yielding  to  a  child’s  im¬ 
portunities.”  “Robbie  hasn’t  teased  for  this,”  you 
would  say.  “  He  has  only  asked  for  it  eagerly,  as  any 
child  would,  believing  in  his  parents’  desire  to  give  him 


ti8  a  priori  reasoning  AND  ARGUMENT. 


pleasure/'  And  you  are  yielding  not  to  his  request,  but 
to  your  own  sense  of  what  will  be  for  his  ultimate  advan¬ 
tage  as  well  as  for  his  present  gratification.  It  will  do 
him  good  to  go,  and  the  permission  will  so  establish  his 
faith  in  your  desire  for  his  happiness  that  he  will  never 
think  of  teasing  you  for  a  thing  you  disapprove  of."  In 
the  last  sentence,  it  will  be  noted,  the  indirect  method  of 
refutation  appears.  Such  a  combination  of  methods  of 
refutation  is  found  in  a  priori  as  in  all  other  argument  to 
be  far  more  effective  than  either  method  alone. 

EXERCISES. 

1.  Syllogize  and  picture  all  the  illustrations  of  a  priori 
reasoning  used  in  the  text.  Test  the  syllogisms. 

2.  Analyze  and  reduce  to  syllogistic  form  the  a  priori 
reasoning  underlying  each  of  the  following  actions: 

(iz)  Taking  an  umbrella  when  one  goes  to  walk  on  a 
cloudy  day. 

{b)  Sending  for  a  doctor  when  one  is  sick. 

(c)  Taking  quinine  for  a  cold.* 

(d)  Stepping  carefully  over  muddy  crossings. 

{e)  Shutting  the  door  of  a  sick-room  softly. 

(y)  Putting  father’s  slippers  to  warm  before  he  comes 
home. 

{g)  Sighting  a  gun. 

{Ji)  Writing  home  for  more  money  when  funds  begin  to 
run  low. 

(z )  Planting  seeds  of  a  certain  kind  in  the  garden. 

3.  Analyze  completely  the  reasoning  process  underlying 
each  of  the  following  arguments  *  or  actions : 

*  Or  a  favorite  remedy  for  any  other  ailment. 

\  Not  only  a  priori^  but  simple  deductive  and  inductive  reasoning 
will  be  found  in  certain  of  these  arguments.  The  relation  of  each 
process  to  all  the  others  should  be  carefully  worked  out. 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT.  119 

{a)  Every  valley  shall  be  exalted,  and  every  mountain 
and  hill  shall  be  made  low :  and  the  crooked  shall  be  made 
straight,  and  the  rough  places  plain :  And  the  glory  of  the 
Lord  shall  be  revealed,  and  all  flesh  shall  see  it  together: 
for  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it. — Isaiah  40:  4-5. 

ip')  Then  up  and  spake  an  old  sailor. 

Had  sailed  to  the  Spanish  main, 

“  I  pray  thee  put  into  yonder  port. 

For  I  fear  a  hurricane. 

“  Last  night  the  moon  had  a  golden  ring. 

And  to-night  no  moon  we  see  !  " 

H.  W.  Longfellow:  The  Wreck  of  ihe  Hesperus. 

(c)  Mr.  John  Corbin,  writing  in  Harper  s  Weekly,  says 
that  we  have  been  led  to  expect  as  a  result  of  the  war  that 
our  consciousness  of  national  individuality  and  power 
would  leap  forth  rejuvenated,  and  he  points  to  the  fact 
that  this  rejuvenation  must  instinctively  seek  expression 
in  the  arts.  Thus,  he  says,  that  when  England  destroyed 
the  Spanish  Armada  the  Elizabethan  era  followed.  We 
have  fought  and  conquered  two  Spanish  armadas;  should 
we  not  also  by  rights  have  a  Shakespeare  or  two  ? 

(I)  Mr,  Buchanan’s  new  novel,  which  is  to  appear  in 
a  few  days,  is  to  be  entitled  Father  Anthony,  and  is  dedi¬ 
cated  with  affection  and  respect  to  a  Roman  Catholic 
priest;  which  tends  to  confirm  me  in  my  belief  that 
Mr.  Buchanan  will  finally  enter  the  Roman  Church.  I 
made  a  prophecy  to  that  effect  when  Mr.  Buchanan  was 
engaged  in  a  controversy  with  Mr.  Le  Gallienne,  in  which 
he  paid  a  compliment  to  Christianity  by  attacking  it,  whde 
Mr.  Le  Gallienne  dealt  it  a  soft  and  innocuous  blow  by 
attempting  to  defend  it.  As  every  one  knows,  Mr. 
Buchanan,  who  is  practically  a  warm-hearted  Christian, 


120  A  PRIORI  REASONING  /IND  ARGUMENT. 


fancies  that  he  is  an  agnostic.  Nature  never  meant  him 
to  be  anything  of  the  sort,  and  sooner  or  later  he  will 
embrace  some  form  of  Christianity,  and  in  all  probability 
that  form  will  be  the  Roman.  Nothing  is  known  of 
Mr.  Buchanan’s  new  book  except  its  dedication.  It  may 
be  presumed  that  its  hero  is  a  Roman  priest  and  that  it 
will  be  a  forcible  and  readable  book. 

(e)  Seest  thou  a  man  diligent  in  his  business  ?  He 
shall  stand  before  kings. — Proverbs,  22  :  29. 

(y)  Mr.  Carnegie  said  with  great  earnestness:  “  If  the 
United  States  is  going  to  undertake  the  government  of  the 
Philippines  and  go  in  for  expansion  throughout  the 
world,  putting  her  hand  in  the  hornets’  nest  of  European 
rivalry,  there  can  be  no  prosperous  business.  We  shall 
be  subject  to  wars  and  war’s  alarms. 

“  Business  is  the  child  of  security  and  peace.  The 
entrance  of  the  United  States  as  a  new  power  in  the  Far 
East  will  set  every  one  of  the  present  powers  to  a  study 
of  the  question  from  a  new  standpoint.  We  shall  be 
compelled  to  increase  our  navy.  We  must  pay  for  a  large 
standing  army,  and  there  is  neither  rest  nor  security  for 
us.  Before  the  American  people  comes  now  the  most 
serious  issue  since  the  issues  of  independence  and  of 
secession.  A  false  step  now  and  the  future  of  the 
republic  will,  in  my  opinion,  be  seriously  impaired  and 
its  industrial  career  retarded.” 

“  You  do  not  think  that  territorial  expansion  will  bring 
expansion  in  trade  ?  ” 

“  No.  Not  by  any  means.  The  development  of  one 
State  in  the  Union  in  peace  and  security  will  outweigh  all 
the  increase  of  profit  we  can  get  from  foreign  trade  in  any 
of  the  worthless  possessions  which  we  can  attempt  now  to 
take.  The  Philippines  have  a  certain  trade  which  cannot 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT, 


I2I 


be  greatly  increased :  the  wants  of  the  people  are  few : 
barbarians  are  no  customers,  civilized  people  are  the  con¬ 
sumers  for  our  products/’ 

•  Do  you  think  well  of  the  acquisition  of  Puerto 
Rico?” 

“  I  certainly  do.  That  is  no  distant  possession.  That 
is  on  our  continent  and  I  approve  of  its  acquisition. 
I  am  no  little  American.  The  day  is  coming  when  we 
shall  own  all  these  West  Indian  islands.  They  will 
gravitate  to  us  of  their  own  accord.  This  is  essential  for 
their  prosperity.  ” — Interview  in  New  York  Times ^  Oct.  21, 
1898. 

(^)  (According  to  the  tale  from  which  the  following 
excerpt  is  taken,  Master  Harold  Jones,  having  under  stress 
of  severe  temptation  disobeyed  his  parents  by  going 
swimming  and  afterwards  fighting  one  of  the  boys,  is 
taken  red-handed  by  his  father,  soundly  thrashed  on  the 
spot,  and  delivered  over  to  his  mother  with  the  words:) 

“  I  found  this  young  gentleman  in  swimming — swim¬ 
ming  and  fighting.  I  have  attended  to  his  wants,  I 
believe.  I  leave  him  to  you.” 

Harold  Jones  was  but  a  lad — a  good  lad  whose  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  golden  text  was  his  Sunday-school  teacher’s 
pride — yet  he  had  collected  other  scraps  of  useful  informa¬ 
tion  as  he  journeyed  through  life,  and  one  of  these  was  a 
perfectly  practical  familiarity  with  the  official  road-map  to 
his  mother’s  heart.  Therefore,-  when  he  crossed  the 
threshold  of  the  Jones  home  Harold  began  at  once  to 
weep  dolefully. 

“  Harold  Jones,  what  do  you  mean  by  such  conduct  ?  ” 
asked  his  mother. 

The  boy  stood  by  the  window  long  enough  to  see  that 
his  father  had  turned  the  corner  toward  the  town.  Then 


122  A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


he  fell  on  the  floor,  and  began  to  bewail  his  lot,  refusing 
to  answer  the  firgt  question  his  mother  asked,  but  telling 
instead  how  “  all  the  other  boys  in  this  town  can  go 
swimmin’  when  they  want  to,’'  hinting  that  he  wouldn’t 
care,  if  papa  had -only  just  come  and  brought  him  home, 
but  that  papa — and  this  was  followed  by  a  vocal  cataract 
of  woe  that  made  the  dishpans  ring. 

He  noted  that  his  mother  bent  over  him  and  said, 
“  My  poor  boy;  ”  at  which  sign  little  Harold  punctured 
the  levees  of  his  grief  again,  and  said  he  “  never  was  going 
to  face  any  of  the  boys  in  this  town  again  ”  — he  “  just 
couldn’t  bear  it.”  Mrs.  Jones  paused  in  her  work  at 
this,  put  down  a  potato  which  she  was  peeling,  and  stood 
up  stiffly,  saying  in  a  freezing  tone,  “  Harold  Jones,  you 
don’t  mean  to  tell  me  that  your  father  punished  you  in 
front  of  those  other  little  boys  ” 

Her  son  only  sobbed  and  nodded  an  affirmative,  and 
gave  lusty  voice  to  the  tearful  wish  that  he  was  dead. 
Mrs.  Jones  stooped  to  the  floor  and  took  her  child  by  an 
arm,  lifting  him  to  his  feet.  She  smoothed  his  hair  and 
took  him  with  her  to  the  big  chair  in  the  dining-room, 
where  she  raised  his  seventy  pounds  to  her  lap,  saying  as 
she  did  so,  “  Mamma’s  boy  will  soon  be  too  big  to  hold.” 
At  that  the  spoiled  child  only  renewed  his  weeping  and 
clutched  her  tightly.  There,  little  by  little,  he  forgot  the 
mishaps  of  the  day.  There  the  anguish  lifted  from  his 
heart,  and  when  his  mother  asked,  “  Harold,  why  did 
you  go  into  the  water  when  we  told  you  not  to  ”  the 
child  only  shook  his  head,  and,  after  repeated  questioning, 
his  answer  came : 

“  Well,  they  asked  me,  mom.” 

“  Who^  asked  you  .?  ”  persisted  Mrs.  Jones. 

“Piggy  Pennington  and  Jimmy  Sears,”  returned  the 
lad. 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


123 


To  the  query,  “  Well,  do  you  have  to  do  everything 
they  ask  you  to,  Harold  ? the  lad’s  answer  was  a  renewal 
of  the  heart-breaking  sobs.  These  softened  the  mother’s 
heart,  as  many  and  many  a  woman’s  heart  has  been 
melted  through  all  the  ages.  She  soothed  the  truant 
child  and  petted  him,  until  the  cramping  in  his  throat 
relaxed  sufficiently  to  admit  of  the  passage  of  an  astonish¬ 
ingly  large  slice  of  bread  and  butter  and  sugar.  After  it 
was  disposed  of,  Harold  busied  himself  by  assorting  his 
old  iron  scraps  on  the  back  porch,  and  his  mother  smiled 
as  she  fancied  she  heard  the  boy  trying  to  whistle  a  tune. 

Harold  had  left  the  porch  before  his  father  came  home 
with  the  beefsteak  for  supper,  and  Mrs.  Jones  met  her 
husband  with:  “Pa  Jones,  what  could  you  be  thinking 
of — punishing  that  boy  before  the  other  children  }  Do 
you  want  to  break  what  little  spirit  he  has  Why,  that 
child  was  nearly  in  hysterics  for  an  hour  after  you  left  !  ” 
— Wm.  Allen  White:  The  Martyrdom  of  Mealy’'  Jones, 
McClure’ s  Magazine,  vol.  IX,  p.  973. 

{h)  I  knew  one  [schoolboy]  about  eight  years  of  age, 
whose  success  at  guessing  in  the  game  of  “  even  and 
odd  ”  attracted  universal  admiration.  This  game  is  sim¬ 
ple  and  is  played  with  marbles.  One  player  holds  in  his 
hand  a  number  of  these  toys,  and  demands  of  another 
whether  that  number  is  even  or  odd.  If  the  guess  is 
right,  the  guesser  wins  one ;  if  wrong,  he  loses  one.  The 
boy  to  whom  I  allude  won  all  the  marbles  of  the  school. 
Of  course  he  had  some  principle  of  guessing;  and  this 
lay  in  mere  observation  and  admeasurement  of  the  astute¬ 
ness  of  his  opponents.  For  example,  an  arrant  simpleton 
is  his  opponent,  and  holding  up  his  closed  hand  asks, 
“Are  they  even  or  odd?”  Our  schoolboy  replies 
“Odd,”  and  loses;  but  upon  the  second  trial  he  wins. 


124 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


for  he  then  says  to  himself,  “The  simpleton  had  them 
even  upon  the  first  trial,  and  his  amount  of  cunning  is 
just  sufficient  to  make  him  have  them  odd  upon  the 
second;  I  will  therefore  guess  odd;  ”  and  he  guesses  odd 
and  wins.  Now,  with  a  simpleton  a  degree  above  the 
first  he  would  have  reasoned  thus:  “  This  fellow  finds  that 
in  the  first  instance  I  guessed  odd,  and  in  the  second  he 
will  propose  to  himself,  upon  the  first  impulse,  a  simple 
variation  from  even  to  odd,  as  did  the  first  simpleton;  but 
then  a  second  thought  will  suggest  that  this  is  too  simple 
a  variation,  and  finally  he  will  decide  upon  putting  it  even 
as  before.  I  will  therefore  guess  even;  ”  he  guesses  even 
and  wins. — E.  A.  Poe:  The  Purloined  Letter. 

4.  Refute  as  completely  as  possible  the  conclusion  of 
each  of  the  reasoning  processes  analyzed  in  Exercise  3, 
stating  the  method  or  methods  used. 

5.  Write  an  a  priori  argument  based  on  Stockton’s 
story.  The  Lady  or  the  Tiger  After  reading  the  story, 
imagine  yourself  in  the  place  of  the  hero,  or  in  that  of  one 
of  the  spectators  at  the  moment  when  the  princess  raises 
her  hand  to  point  to  the  door  which  she  wishes  her  lover 
to  open.  Determine  from  your  knowledge  of  her  char¬ 
acter  which  door  she  will  indicate,  that  of  the  tiger  or  that 
of  the  lady,  and  write  out  the  reasoning  process  by  which 
you  come  to  this  conclusion  in  such  a  way  as  to  convince 
another  person  of  the  truth  of  your  inference. 

6.  Complete  the  story  of  Edwin  Drood,  analyzing  the 
a  />rwrz' reasoning  which  you  have  used.* 

*  Or  the  teacher  may  reau  to  the  class  the  first  part  of  any  suitable 
short  story,  stopping  at  a  point  where  the  characters  and  the  situation 
have  been  outlined,  but  the  outcome  is  still  uncertain,  and  require  the 
class  to  anticipate  the  solution  of  the  plot,  on  the  basis  of  the  characters 
and  the  situation. 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


125 


7.  Write  an  a  priori  argument  leading  to  any  one  of  the 
following  conclusions: 

(a)  Golf*  will  shortly  lose  its  popularity. 

(^5)  - f  will  write  a  creditable  commencement 

speech.  J 

(c)  A  certain  rule  §  will  soon  be  abolished  in - § 

school  (or  college). 

(d)  A  certain  practice  §  in - §  school  (or  college) 

will  shortly  be  done  away  with. 

(e)  Women  will  be  allowed  to  vote  on  all  questions  in 
all  States.  || 

(/)  - 1  will  be  the  next  President  of  the  United 

States. 

(g)  A  certain  bill  **  will  pass  the  United  States 
Senate,  ff 

(A)  A  certain  senator  will  vote  for  a  certain  bill. 

(?')  Kipling's  fame  will  increase  with  time. 

(y)  Manual  training  will  eventually  form  a  part  of  all 
secondary  school  education. 

(/^)  Poe  §§  will  some  day  be  recognized  as  one  of  the 
world's  great  poets. 

(/)  Capital  punishment  will  ultimately  be  abolished 
throughout  the  civilized  world. 

*  Any  other  game  may  be  substituted. 

f  The  name  of  a  certain  commencement  speaker  in  the  school  or 
college  to  which  the  student  belongs  should  be  supplied. 

J  Or  will  deliver  it  effectively. 

§  Naming  it. 

II  Or  the  name  of  a  single  State  may  be  substituted. 

^  The  name  of  any  presidential  possibility  should  be  supplied. 

**  Naming  one  at  present  under  consideration. 

•j-f  Or  any  other  legislative  body. 

Naming  him.  A  member  of  any  legislative  body  may  be  men¬ 
tioned. 

The  name  of  any  other  poet  may  be  substituted. 


126 


A  PRIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


{m)  Commencement  essays  will  be  done  away  with  by 
all  colleges.* 

{n)  Electricity  will  supplant  steam  as  a  motive  power 
for  railway  trains. 

(o)  Horse-power  will  cease  to  be  used  for  private  car¬ 
riages  before  the  middle  of  the  twentieth  century. 

(/>)  A  satisfactory  flying  machine  will  some  day  be 
invented. 

*  Or  by  any  one  particular  college  or  school. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 

The  essential  character  of  a  posteriori  reasoning  has 
been  suggested  in  the  foregoing  chapter.*  Like  a  priori 
reasoning,  the  a  posteriori  process  bases  itself  upon  an 
observed  sequence  of  events.  A  posteriori  reasoning, 
however,  instead  of  inferring  the  second  event,  the  first 
being  given,  starts  at  the  other  end  of  the  series  and  infers 
the  first  member,  the  second  serving  as  datum.  Such 
habitual  series  as  those  discussed  in  Chapter  VI.  may  again 
serve  us  for  illustration.  Having  firmly  established  in  our 
own  minds  the  sequence  between  a  hard  frost  and  the 
blighted  appearance  of  garden  plants,  we  may  not  only  by 
a  priori  reasoning  conclude  that  this  particular  frost  will 
blight  the  plants  in  the  garden,  but,  by  a  posteriori  reason¬ 
ing,  we  may  infer  from  the  limp  and  blackened  appearance 
of  the  plants  that  there  was  a  severe  frost  last  night.  Or, 
looking  out  in  the  morning,  and  seeing  the  walks  wet  and 
the  gutters  full  of  water,  we  say,  “  It  must  have  rained 
last  night. '  ’ 

Such  reasoning  as  this  was  used  by  Robinson  Crusoe, 
when,  discovering  the  print  of  a  man's  foot  in  the  sand, 
he  concluded  that  a  man  had  visited  the  island.  In  fol¬ 
lowing  a  trail  one  must  reason  thus  from  the  second 
member  of  the  series,  which  is  seen,  to  the  first,  which  is 

*  See  p.  ii6. 


127 


128  A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


unseen;  from  the  half-effaced  print  in  the  soil,  the  broken 
twig,  and  the  disarranged  branches  to  the  passing  of  some 
creature  or  creatures;  from  the  number,  size,  and  form  of 
the  tracks,  the  peculiar  manner  in  which  the  twig  is 
broken  and  the  branches  disarranged,  to  the  kind  of 
creatures,  their  number,  their  size,  and  physical  condi¬ 
tion,  with  sometimes  even  the  purpose  of  their  move¬ 
ments  and  the  success  or  failure  of  them.  All  this 
belongs  to  woodcraft  in  general  and  to  hunting  in  par¬ 
ticular.  Indians  are  supposed  to  be  adepts  at  this  process 
of  inference,  their  forest  life  naturally  tending  to  make 
them  very  dependent  upon  it.* 

In  judging  character  or  motive  from  external  evidences, 
the  a  posteriori  reasoning  is  used.  One  decides  from  a 
person's  face,  from  his  actions,  from  his  talk,  or  from  his 
reputation,  what  his  character  is;  or  from  the  thing  he 
does,  the  motive  he  had  for  doing  it.f 

*  Hence  stories  of  Indians  and  pioneers,  such  as  Cooper’s  novels, 
and  of  animals,  such  as  Kipling’s  Jungle  Books,  abound  in  a  posteriori 
reasoning. 

From  this  type  of  the  reasoning  backward  doubtless  sprang  the  name 
often  applied  to  all  its  types,  “the  reasoning  from  sign.”  The 
“sign”  is,  of  course,  the  second  member  of  the  series,  and  becomes 
a  sign  of  the  first  only  because  inductively  one  has  come  to  the  con¬ 
clusion  that  the  second  is  always  preceded  by  the  first. 

f  In  reading  novels,  especially  of  the  modern  realistic  type,  we  must 
determine  the  characters  of  the  persons  represented  just  as  we  deter¬ 
mine  those  of  people  we  meet  in  real  life.  We  are  not  now,  as  in  the 
old-fashioned  romance,  told  directly  and  at  some  length  what  the 
characters  of  the  hero  and  heroine  are,  but  must  infer  these  characters 
from  the  action  and  conversation  recorded. 

Many  essays  on  literary  subjects  attempt  by  means  of  a  posteriori 
reasoning  to  infer  from  the  writings  from  a  certain  author  his  character, 
tastes,  sensory  development,  habits  of  mind,  and  previous  experiences. 
Of  such  essays  Bagehot’s  Shakespeare  the  Man  may  stand  as  type. 


A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT.  129 


The  determination  of  character  and  motive  from  ex¬ 
ternal  evidence  is  closely  allied  with  the  use  of  the 
a  posteriori  reasoning  in  the  detection  of  crime.  Here  the 
commission  of  the  crime  is  the  second  member  of  the 
habitual  series,  the  first  being  concealed  by  the  design  of 
the  criminal.  The  first  member  may  be  the  criminal’s 
deliberate  plan  to  forge  the  check  or  to  murder  the 
victim;  it  may  be  the  appearance  of  a  sudden  temptation 
in  the  way  of  opportunity  or  necessity  or  both  combined; 
but  whatever  it  is,  this  concealed  event  must  be  traced 
out  relentlessly  by  the  backward  looking  process  of  reason¬ 
ing.  Being  established,  it  may  then  serve  as  datum  for 
a  second  a  posteriori  process,  and  thus  a  long  chain  of 
past  events  be  reconstructed  from  a  single  one.  This 
method  of  unraveling  a  mystery,  first  popularized  by  the 
detective  stories  of  Poe,  seems  almost  more  fascinating 
than  any  other  of  the  numerous  applications  of  a  posteriori 
reasoning.  Such  effort  has  been  made  to  conceal  the 
first  member  of  the  series  that  the  triumph  of  the  discovery 
is  enhanced. 

The  achievements  of  this  reasoning  in  the  field  of 
science  are,  however,  even  more  marvelous,  though  so 
familiar  that  they  may  be  passed  with  a  word.  The 
science  of  palaeontology,  we  are  often  told,  is  able, 
by  the  a  posteriori  process  of  reasoning,  to  determine  the 
general  configuration,  the  character  of  the  soil,  and  even 
the  climatic  conditions  of  a  certain  tract  of  country  dur¬ 
ing  a  certain  prehistoric  period,  to  furnish  proof  of  the 
previous  existence  there  of  a  plant-species  which  has  been 
extinct  for  numberless  centuries,  to  reconstruct  an  entire 

The  “internal  evidence”  as  to  the  authorship  of  certain  works  and 
the  dates  at  which  certain  writings  were  produced  also  involves  this 
process  of  reasoning. 


130  A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


group  of  hitherto  unknown  animals  from  a  single  bone 
found  in  a  certain  geologic  stratum.*  And  the  same 
process  of  reasoning  enables  us,  in  archaeological  investi¬ 
gations,  to  read  the  entire  life  of  a  perished  race  from  the 
vestiges  of  its  civilization. 

The  syllogistic  form  of  this  reasoning  is  correlative  with 
that  of  the  a  /rzhr/ process,  f  Events  of  the  class  B,  we 
say,  are  always  preceded  by  event  A.  This  particular 
event  belongs  to  the  class  B  and  hence  must  have  been 
preceded  by  event  A.  Or,  still  more  simply: 

I.  B  is  always  preceded  by  A. 

II.  This  event  is  B. 

III.  This  event  is  preceded  by  A. 

Thus,  in  a  case  of  suicide: 

I.  The  discovery  of  a  man  dead  under  certain  peculiar 
circumstances  (he  being  subject  to  melancholia 
and  having  often  threatened  to  take  his  own 
life,  a  pistol  wound  being  discovered  in  his 
head,  made  by  a  ball  of  the  same  calibre  as 
those  in  his  pistol  lying  beside  him,  the  doors 
and  windows  of  the  room  being  all  so  securely 
fastened  from  the  inside  that  they  had  to  be 
broken  in)  is  always  preceded  by  the  act  of 
suicide. 

*  Thackeray  draws  a  half-humorous  parallel  ( The  Newcomes,  vol. 
II.,  ch.  IX.)  between  these  achievements  and  those  of  the  novelist. 
“  As  Professor  Owen  or  Professor  Agassiz  takes  a  fragment  of  a  bone, 
and  builds  an  enormous  forgotten  monster  out  of  it,  wallowing  in 
primaeval  quagmires,  tearing  down  leaves  and  branches  of  plants  that 
flourished  thousands  of  years  ago  and  perhaps  may  be  coal  by  this  time 
— so  the  novelist  puts  this  and  that  together  :  from  the  footprint  finds 
the  foot ;  from  the  foot,  the  brute  who  trod  on  it  ;  from  the  brute,  the 
plant  he  browsed  on,  the  marsh  in  which  he  swam.” 
f  See  Ch.  VI,,  p.  115. 


A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT.  131 


II.  This  discovery  is  that  of  a  man  dead  under  certain 
peculiar  circumstances  (stating  them  as  in  L). 

III.  This  discovery  was  preceded  by  the  act  of  suicide. 

A  similar  analysis  might  be  made  of  the  reasoning 
process  by  which  one  infers  that  Kipling  has  acquired  a 
knowledge  of  the  process  of  engine-building. 

I.  All  writing  of  stories  exactly  describing  the  minutiae 
of  engine-building  is  preceded  by  the  author’s 
acquisition  of  exact  knowledge  of  the  process 
of  engine-building. 

II.  The  writing  of  the  story  .007  is  the  writing  of  a 
story  exactly  describing  the  minutiae  of  engine¬ 
building. 

III.  The  writing  of  this  story  was  preceded  by  the 
author’s  acquisition  of  exact  knowledge  of  the 
process  of  engine-building. 

The  past  tense  of  the  conclusion  in  a  posteriori  reason¬ 
ing  may  be  explained  as  was  the  future  tense  in  a  priori 
reasoning.*  It  is  not  required  by  the  technical  form  of 
the  syllogism,  but  belongs  to  the  reasoner’s  own  point  of 
view  with  reference  to  the  first  member  of  the  series. 
Event  B,  the  second  member,  is  either  present  or  past. 
(It  could  not  serve  as  datum  were  it  future.)  Event  A, 
therefore,  since  it  precedes  B  in  point  of  time,  must  be 
referred  to  the  past. 

For  the  process  of  a  posteriori  with  the  refu¬ 

tation  thereof,  the  preceding  chapter  may  again  be  con¬ 
sulted.  In  a  posteriori  argument,  as  in  all  other  forms, 
the  reasoning  process  of  the  writer  must  be  established  step 
by  step  in  the  reader’s  mind.  This  means,  of  course,  that 
first  the  reader  must  be  led  to  recognize  the  habitual  series 

*  See  Ch.  VI.,  pp.  115-116. 


132  A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


of  events  and  next  to  identify  the  event  given  with  the 
second  member  of  the  series,  the  first  being  thereupon 
inferred. 

Similarly,  an  a  posteriori  reasoning  process  may  be  over¬ 
thrown  by  destroying  either  of  these  stages  of  the  reason¬ 
ing  process  or  by  establishing  a  contradictory  conclusion 
upon  the  basis  of  a  different  series  of  events. 

EXERCISES. 

1.  Find  illustrations  of  your  own,  from  observation  or 
reading,  of  each  of  the  uses  of  a  posteriori  reasoning  men¬ 
tioned  in  this  chapter.  Analyze  each  of  these  pieces  of 
reasoning  and  refute  it  if  you  can. 

2.  Analyze  completely  the  a  posteriori  reasoning  in¬ 
volved  in  the  following  selections,  refuting  wherever  the 
reasoning  seems  to  you  fallacious: 

{a)  At  last  I  awake,  very  queer  about  the  head,  as  from 
a  giddy  sleep,  and  see  the  butcher  walking  off,  congratu¬ 
lated  by  the  two  other  butchers  and  the  sweep  and  publi¬ 
can,  and  putting  on  hij^  coat  as  he  goes;  from  which  I 
augur,  justly,  that  the  victory  is  his. — Dickens:  David 
Copper  field,  ch.  XVIII. 

{h)  “I  perceive  that  you  have  been  unwell  lately. 
Summer  colds  are  always  a  little  trying. 

“  I  was  confined  to  the  house  by  a  severe  chill  for  three 
days  last  week.  I  thought,  however,  that  I  had  cast  off 
every  trace  of  it. ' ' 

“  So  you  have.  You  look  remarkably  robust,^' 

“  How,  then,  did  you  know  of  it  ? 

“  From  your  slippers.’' 

“  How  on  earth - .  ” 

“Your  slippers  are  new,”  he  said,  “you  could  not 
have  had  them  more  than  a  few  weeks.  The  soles  which 


A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT  133 


you  are  at  this  moment  presenting  to  me  are  slightly 
scorched.  For  a  moment  I  thought  they  might  have  got 
wet  and  been  burned  in  the  drying.  But  near  the  instep 
there  is  a  small  circular  wafer  of  paper  with  the  shopman’s 
hieroglyphics  upon  it.  Damp  would  of  course  have 
removed  this.  You  had,  then,  been  sitting  with  your 
feet  outstretched  to  the  fire,  which  a  man  would  hardly  do 
even  in  so  wet  a  June  as  this  if  he  were  in  his  full  health.  ” 
— A.  Conan  Doyle :  Memoirs  of  Sherlock  Holmes. 

(c)  Prof.  Petrie  showed  diagrams  of  cylindrical  seals  as 
used  by  the  kings  of  the  first  three  dynasties,  and  impres¬ 
sions  of  such  cylinders  which  were  vastly  more  frequently 
found  than  the  seals  themselves.  He  then  showed  a  vase 
exhibiting  the  earliest  representation  of  Egyptian  mythol¬ 
ogy,  and  other  vases,  tablets,  and  slates  showing  animals 
and  birds,  such  as  the  hawk,  bull,  lion,  and  leopard, 
which  manifested  a  well-acquired  knowledge  of  these 
animals,  as  well  as  of  the  ibex,  gazelle,  and  antelope. 
Large  numbers  of  animals,  such  as  the  calf,  monkey,  and 
dog,  had  been  found  modele^  in  green  clay,  together 
with  a  model  of  a  lion  in  red  pottery.  These  finds  were 
very  important,  as  they  showed  the  skill  in  clay  modeling 
of  the  earliest  dynasty,  the  rise  of  the  art  of  modeling,  and 
the  Egyptian  ideas  and  appreciation  of  the  forms  of 
animals  and  of  the  human  body.  These  important  monu¬ 
ments  of  the  civil  life  of  the  early  kings  proved  that  glaz¬ 
ing  was  a  specialty  of  the  original  people,  and  that 
Egyptian  art  reached  its  high-water  mark  somewhere 
before  b.c.  4000. 

Other  finds  showed  the  kings  in  triumph  over  their 
enemies,  receiving  captive  kings,  opening  the  public 
works,  or  reclaiming  the  marshes.  Others  were  vessels 
with  dedications  written  upon  them,  and  stone  jars  with 


134  A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


chambers  as  storehouses  for  the  king’s  soul.  The  handled 
copper  vessels  showed  the  most  advanced  metal-work 
found  of  the  first  three  dynasties.  The  population  of  the 
pre-dynastic  age  was  different  in  type  from  that  of  his¬ 
torical  times,  and  in  the  early  monuments  the  presence  of 
diverse  types  was  very  clear,  some  being  shaven,  some 
bearded,  some  long-haired.  We  had  at  last  before  us 
evidence  of  the  close  of  the  period  previously  considered 
prehistoric,  showing  the  development  of  the  art,  writing, 
and  civilization  of  Egypt  and  the  composition  of  a  race 
which  had  since  maintained  its  character  during  6000 
years. — New  York  Times,  Report  of  Lecture  by  Prof. 
W.  M.  Flinders  Petrie. 

{d')  It  is  plain  what  Spain  wants  of  the  Philippines. 
She  wants  to  get  something  out  of  them.  That  a  bank¬ 
rupt  nation  without  a  navy  should  keep  and  administer  a 
group  of  islands  half  the  world  away  is  out  of  the  ques¬ 
tion.  It  becomes  more  flatly  out  of  the  question  when 
her  government  has  produced  a  lively  revolt  in  every  one 
of  them  in  which  it  has  ever  been  carried  on  or  asserted. 
If  the  Philippines  were  all  given  back  to  Spain  to-morrow 
the  Spanish  forces  in  them  would  all  be  annihilated  before 
the  year  was  out. 

But  although  Spain  cannot  hold  the  Philippines  she 
can,  she  thinks,  make  them  figure  as  an  asset  in  her 
schedules.  If  we  admit  her  ownership  she  might  claim 
some  compensation  from  us,  if  we  choose  to  take  them 
over  as  a  war  indemnity.  If  we  do  not  choose  she  can 
still  peddle  them  about  Europe,  and  she  could  doubtless 
find  a  purchaser  if  she  could  show  a  clear  title. 

This  explains  the  pretense  of  horror  in  Madrid  over  our 
claim  to  the  Philippines,  it  explains  the  tenacity  of  the 
Spanish  Commissioners  in  Paris.  It  is  not  a  question  of 


A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT.  135 


our  allowing  Spain  to  hold  them.  She  simply  cannot 
hold  them.  It  is  a  question  of  our  allowing  her  to  sell 
them.  And  that  we  cannot  allow,  in  default  of  a  pur¬ 
chaser  satisfactory  to  ourselves. 

(e)  Artistically  considered,  Cleopatra  is,  perhaps,  the 
masterpiece  among  Shakespeare’s  female  characters;  given 
the  problem,  Shakespeare  has  solved  it  as  no  one  else 
could  have  done.  But  what  conflicts  must  his  soul  have 
endured,  what  bitter  experiences  must  he  have  passed 
through,  to  have  set  himself  such  a  problem,  to  have 
created  a  woman  so  widely  different  from  all  those  he  had 
pictured  before — a  woman  so  devoid  of  the  ideal  womanly 
graces,  yet  so  irresistible,  for  whose  sake  Antony  sacrifices 
the  dominion  of  the  world. — Bernhard  Ten  Brink:  Five 
Lectures  on  Shakespeare. 

(y*)  He  (Mr.  Glegg)  noticed  remarkable  coincidences 
between  these  zoological  phenomena  and  the  great  events 
of  that  time — as,  for  example,  that  before  the  burning  of 
York  Minster  there  had  been  mysterious  serpentine  marks 
on  the  leaves  of  the  rose-trees,  together  with  an  unusual 
prevalence  of  slugs,  which  he  had  been  puzzled  to  know 
the  meaning  of,  until  it  flashed  upon  him  with  this  melan¬ 
choly  conflagration. — George  Eliot:  Mill  on  the  Floss. 

(g)  “  Tve  seen  the  rabbit’s  track  when  I  knew  he  was 
dodgin’  the  fox,  for  his  catlike  dots  were  in  the  snow  by 
the  side  of  it,  and  you  could  see  some  places  where  he 
had  run  his  sharp  nose  into  the  rabbit’s  prints.  .  .  . 

“  One  day  last  winter,  ...  I  cut  across  the  cornfield, 
and  I  found  a  peculiar  mouse-track.  It  ended  suddenly 
and  there  were  broad  wing-strokes  in  the  snow.  I  knew, 
of  course,  that  meant  a  tragedy,  and  by  the  broad 
scratches  I  knew  it  was  a  hawk  or  an  owl,  not  a  .  .  , 


136  A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 

shrike;  but  as  I  stooped  I  was  puzzled.  There  was  no 
tailmark. 

“A  short-tailed  meadow  mouse/'  interrupted  Shan. 

• — J.  N.  Baskett:  At  You- All' s  House,  ch.  X. 

{K)  Every  one  in  Bayshore  was  informed  this  afternoon 
that  Burnside  Jayne,  son  of  Andrew  Jayne,  had  either 
committed  suicide  or  been  accidentally  killed  by  the  dis¬ 
charge  of  his  shotgun.  Young  Jayne,  despite  the  posi¬ 
tiveness  of  the  assertions,  based  upon  the  information  and 
belief  of  his  own  father,  is  alive  and  as  well  as  ever, 
beyond  suffering  from  a  headache. 

The  young  man  went  hunting  this  morning,  and  while 
away  came  upon  a  'supply  of  cherry  wine,  which  he  liked 
so  well  that  he  was  unsteady  when  he  reached  home, 
carrying  a  gun  in  one  hand  and  a  bottle  of  the  wine  in  the 
other.  He  sat  down  on  the  doorstep  and  fell  asleep,  and 
in  some  manner  the  bottle  broke  and  the  red  wine  dyed 
his  hair,  face,  neck,  and  clothing  on  the  upper  part  of  his 
body.  The  gun  slipped  down,  and  as  he  sat  his  chin 
rested  upon  the  muzzle,  while  the  butt  rested  upon  the 
ground.  In  that  position  and  condition  he  was  seen  by 
his  father,  who  immediately  rushed  off  for  a  doctor,  and 
the  report  spread  that  Burnside  Jayne  was  dead. 

The  doctor  came,  examined  the  young  man,  smelled 
his  breath  and  the  clothing,  took  a  pail  of  water  and 
washed  off  the  wine  and  at  the  same  time  cooled  the  hot 
head  of  the  young  man,  who  awakened.  How  he  man¬ 
aged  to  break  the  bottle  so  that  it  dyed  him  as  it  did  is 
not  easily  understood. 

3.  Analyze  the  reasoning  involved  in  each 

of  the  following  essays  or  stories : 

(a)  Kipling’s  The  King^  s  Ancus,  in  The  Second  Jungle 
Book. 


A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT.  137 


(3)  Poe’s  The  Purloined  Letter\\  The  Gold-bug^  The 
Murders  m  the  Rue  Morgue.  —  — 

(c)  Conan  Doyle’s  A  Study  in  Scarlet. 

id)  Fiske’s  What  We  Learn  from  Old  Aryan  Words,  in 
Excursions  of  an  Evolutionist. 

(e)  Winchell’s  Sketches  of  Creation. 

(f)  Ten  Brink’s  Five  Lectures  on  Shakespeare,  first  and 
second  lectures,  The  Poet  and  the  Man  and  The  Chronology 
of  Shakespeare' s  Works. 

(g)  Bagehot’s  Shakespeare  the  Man. 

4.  Does  the  physician  ever  need  to  use  a  posteriori 
reasoning  ?  When  ?  Analyze  the  process.  Give  in¬ 
stances  of  the  use  of-  a  posteriori  reasoning  by  the  natural¬ 
ist  :  by  the  student  of  chemistry :  by  the  housekeeper. 

5.  Write  out  an  exact  description  of  a  scene  you  once 
witnessed,  whose  meaning  you  do  not  (or  did  not)  know, 
taking  pains  not  to  suggest  any  explanation.  Then  hand 
this  description  to  another  student  in  the  class ^  receiving 
one  from  him  in  exchange.  Write  out  a  full  explanation 
of  this  scene  so  far  as  it  appears  to  you  explicable, 
analyzing  the  a  posteriori  process  of  reasoning  by  which 
you  have  interpreted  it.* 


*  A  scene  admitting  of  such  interpretation  is  described  in  Henry 
Kingsley’s  The  Hillyars  and  the  Burtons,  Ch.  XXVII.  “  A  couple 
came  from  the  rest  and  stood  at  the  window  together,  behind  the 
half-drawn  curtains  ;  and  I  could  see  them,  for  their  heads  were  against 
the  light.  He  was  a  gallant  youth  .  .  .  and  she  seemed  beautiful.  .  .  . 
He  spoke  eagerly  to  her,  but  she  never  looked  towards  him  ;  he 
seemed  to  speak  more  eagerly  yet  and  tried  to  take  her  hand  ;  but  she 
withdrew  it,  and  he  slowly  left  her  and  went  back  into  the  room  ;  but 
she  remained,  and  I  saw  her  pulling  the  flowers  from  her  nosegay  and 
petulantly  throwing  them  on  the  carpet,  while  she  looked  out  steadily 
across  the  wild,  sweeping  river.” 


13^  A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT. 


6.  Write  an  account  of  the  events  just  preceding  that 
represented  in  any  picture  which  seems  to  tell  a  story.* 

7.  Decide  on  the  motive  of  the  lady  who  smiled  and  of 
the  lady  who  frowned  in  Stockton’s  story,  The  Discourager 
of  Hesitancy  in  the  Century  Magazine^  vol.  XXX.,  (new 
series  VIII.),  p.  482. 

8.  Write  an  a  posteriori  argument  leading  to  any  one  of 
the  following  conclusions: 

{a)  - "f  is  quick-witted. 

[d)  - f  has  had  a  refined  home-training.  J 

(c)  The  man  §  who  sat  next  me  in  the  street  car  to-day 
is  a  farmer.  || 

(d)  - ^  is  intellectually  alert,  sympathetic,  and  fun- 

loving.** 

[e)  - ff  is  conscientious  and  methodical. 

[f)  The  late  war  with  Spain  was  brought  about  by  the 
politicians.  §§ 

(^)  Shelley  was  very  sensitive  to  odors.  |||| 

[h)  Byron  was  particularly  fond  of  dark  colors. 

(i)  Tennyson  lacked  depth  of  feeling. 


*  Such  pictures  should  be  selected  by  the  teacher  and  hung  where 
they  can  be  studied  by  the  student. 

f  Name  some  friend  or  acquaintance. 

J  Substitute  any  other  similar  inference. 

^  Or  woman. 

II  Or  a  druggist,  a  plumber,  a  tailor,  a  physician,  etc. 

^  The  original  of  a  photograph  displayed  by  the  teacher. 

**  Substitute  any  other  characteristics. 

f|  The  name  of  some  public  character  should  be  supplied. 

Other  characteristics  may  be  substituted.  The  inference  may  be 
drawn  from  this  person’s  dress,  the  appearance  of  his  room  or  his  desk, 
his  manners,  his  actions,  or  any  other  similar  data.. 

Those  of  a  certain  party  may  be  specified. 

II II  Or  Wordsworth,  to  sound. 


A  POSTERIORI  REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT,  I39 


(y)  The  existing  translation  of  the  Romauni  of  the  Rose 
Chaucer’s. 

(/^)  Horace  imitated  Lucilius. 

(/)  The  writers  of  the  gospels  were  truthful  men. 

{m)  Francis  Bacon  wrote  Shakespeare’s  plays. 

{n)  The  Iliad  was  written  Dy  several  persons. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


REASONING  AND  ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY 

AND  A  FORTIORI. 

We  often  find  ourselves  coming  to  a  conclusion  about 
a  certain  object  or  individual  on  the  basis  of  its  resem¬ 
blance  to  another  individual  or  object.  Thus  one  says, 
“  People  canT  possibly  reach  their  full  measure  of  healthy 
mental  and  moral  growth  if  they  are  all  the  time  moving 
from  place  to  place.  How  would  you  expect  a  tree  to 
flourish  if  you  dug  it  up  every  few  years  and  set  it  down 
in  another  spot  ? ' ' 

This  kind  of  reasoning  we  call  reasoning  from  analogy. 
It  is  commonly  explained  as  resting  upon  a  presupposition 
that  when  two  things  are  alike  what  is  true  of  the  one  is 
true  of  the  other  also,  the  observation  that  the  two  things 
involved  in  the  analogy  are  alike,  and  a  judgment  already 
arrived  at  concerning  one  of  them.  Thus,  in  the  reason¬ 
ing  just  cited,  trees  and  human  beings  are  in  some  respects 
alike,  therefore  it  is  inferred  that  the  development  of 
people  must  suffer  from  frequent  changes  of  location  just 
as  that  of  trees  does. 

This  explanation  approximates  the  truth,  but  fails  to 
note  the  limitations  of  the  analogy.  We  should  not 
reason  that  because  a  child  and  a  mouse  are  both  timid, 
the  child  must  be  fond  of  cheese!  A  likeness  in  certain 
respects  between  two  things  does  not  induce  the  reasoner 

140 


ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI.  141 

to  attribute  to  one  of  them  all  the  characteristics  of  the 
other.  One  is,  however,  impelled  to  such  a  conclusion  as 
that  the  growth  of  human  beings  is  injured  by  frequent 
changes  of  situation,  because  the  growth  of  trees  is  thus 
impaired,  provided  always  that  the  characteristic  common 
both  to  trees  and  to  people  is  one  which  would  tend  to 
affect  their  growth — such  a  characteristic,  let  us  say,  as 
that  of  a  peculiarly  intimate  relation  to  environment.  A 
dim  sense  of  this  common  quality  must  hover  in  the  back¬ 
ground  of  the  reasoner’s  consciousness,  as  the  conclusion 
takes  form  in  his  mind.  He  does  not,  perhaps,  rigidly 
define  to  himself  this  common  characteristic.  He  may 
only  recognize  the  fact  that  trees  suffer  from  frequent 
transplanting  and  perceive  vaguely  that  they  represent  a 
larger  class  of  things  as  yet  unnamed,  whose  organization 
is  such  that  it  demands  a  close  and  a  continuous  relation 
with  its  environment.  Human  beings,  he  is  sure,  fall 
within  this  unnamed  class  to  which  trees  belong,  the  class 
of  things  having  a  certain  peculiar  organization,  which 
makes  them  dependent  on  their  environment.  Therefore, 
people  also,  like  trees,  must  suffer  from  frequent  uproot¬ 
ing. 

If  we  analyze  this  process  of  reasoning  into  technical 
terms,  we  find  that  its  major  premise  is  an  induction  from 
a  single  instance.  Trees  suffer  from  frequent  transplant¬ 
ing,  therefore  all  members  of  the  shadowy  class  to  which 
trees  belong  suffer  under  frequent  transplanting.  From 
this  point  the  deduction  is  typical.  Human  beings 
belong  to  this  undefined  class  to  which  trees  also  belong, 
hence  human  beings  also  suffer  from  frequent  transplant¬ 
ing. 

Reasoning  from  analogy  thus  employs  as  its  middle  term 
a  class  of  things  which  is  at  once  vague  and  concrete. 


142  ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI. 


The  middle  term  in  the  syllogism  implied  above  is  defined 
only  by  naming  one  of  its  members.  It  is  “  the  class  of 
things  to  which  trees  belong/’  rather  than  “  the  class  of 
growing  things  which  are  intimately  related  to  their  en¬ 
vironment.  ”  From  this  lack  of  sharp  definition  of  the 
middle  term  arises  the  fallacy  to  which  reasoning  from 
analogy  is  peculiarly  liable — that  of  mistaking  the  middle 
term.  Out  of  its  context,  “the  class  to  which  trees 
belong”  might  mean  any  one  of  a  dozen  different  classes 
— the  class  of  salient  features  in  the  landscape,  that  of 
sources  of  fuel,  that  of  means  of  shade,  that  of  symbols, 
that  of  growing  things,  that  of  things  which  should  be 
planted,  that  of  influences  upon  the  rainfall,  that  of 
studies  for  artists — the  catalogue  is  endless.  If,  therefore, 
one  fails  to  define  the  class  to  himself  by  its  abstract  char¬ 
acteristic  as  well  as  by  reference  to  one  of  its  members, 
he  may  at  length  awake  to  the  discovery  that  his  reasoning 
is  confused  and  hopelessly  discredited  by  the  presence  of 
two  middle  terms  instead  of  one.  The  inference  that  this 
child  must  be  fond  of  cheese  because  her  movements  are 
like  those  of  a  mouse  is  a  flagrant  instance  of  this 
duplicity  in  the  middle  term. 

I.  All  creatures  of  the  class  to  which  mice  belong 
(the  class  having  a  certain  digestive  apparatus, 
say)  are  fond  of  cheese. 

II.  This  child  belongs  to  the  class  to  which  mice 
belong  (the  class  of  creatures  whose  movements 
are  furtive  and  nervous). 

III.  This  child  is  fond  of  cheese. 

The  vagueness  of  the  middle  term  in  the  reasoning  from 
analogy  is  thus  often  a  positive  disadvantage.  Its  con¬ 
creteness  is,  however,  an  advantage,  equally  positive, 


ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI,  I43 


when  this  type  of  reasoning  is  used  for  purposes  of  argu¬ 
ment.  The  parables  of  the  New  Testament  are  doubtless 
the  most  remarkable  examples  of  the  argument  from 
analogy.  Addressed,  as  they  were  primarily,  to  an  audience 
of  uneducated  minds,  they  found  a  tremendous  advantage 
in  the  use  of  the  concrete  form  of  statement.  Instead  of 
“  the  class  of  valuable  things  lost,'’  “  the  class  of  things 
to  which  a  lost  coin  belongs”  is  presented  to  the  hearer's 
mind;  instead  of  “  the  class  of  great  results  attained  by 
inconsiderable  means,''  we  have  “  the  class  of  things  to 
which  belongs  the  growth  of  the  mustard-tree  from  the 
mustard-seed. ' '  The  class  thus  brought  concretely  before 
the  mind  by  instancing  a  single  member  of  it  is  far  more 
real  to  the  hearer  than  any  abstract  statement  of  its 
characteristics  could  possibly  make  it. 

The  exact  analysis  of  an  opponent's  argument  has 
heretofore  been  enjoined  as  a  prerequisite  to  all  success¬ 
ful  refutation ;  but  the  general  necessity  for  this  analysis 
increases  in  the  case  of  the  argument  from  analogy.  Here 
the  undefined  middle  term  may  conceal  a  specious  fallacy. 
Only  when  it  is  clearly  defined,  so  that  its  duplicities,  if 
any,  become  apparent,  is  one  ready  to  refute  or  accept  the 
argument.  To  show  a  fallacy  in  the  form  of  the  syllo¬ 
gism,  due  to  the  ambiguities  of  the  middle  term,  is,  then, 
one  useful  method  of  direct  refutation.  The  other 
method,  that  of  disproving  either  the  major  or  the  minor 
premise,  need  not  be  discussed,  since  it  differs  in  no 
essential  from  this  method  as  used  in  connection  with 
other  forms  of  deductive  argument.  Indirect  refutation 
is,  of  course,  often  available  in  connection  with  the  direct 
method. 

A  form  of  reasoning  closely  associated  with  the  reason¬ 
ing  from  analogy  is  that  termed  reasoning  a  fortiori. 


144  ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI. 


This  reasoning  also  involves  an  analogy  or  comparison 
between  two  members  in  the  same  class.  Of  one  of  them 
a  certain  judgment  has  Deen  admitted.  Of  the  other  it 
must  then  be  also  allowed,  on  the  basis  of  their  common 
membership  in  the  class.  But,  as  it  happens,  the  second 
member’s  relation  to  the  class  is  far  closer  and  more  un¬ 
mistakable  than  that  of  the  first  member.  Henc^the 
judgment  concerning  the  first  must  not  only  be  true  of 
the  second,  but  far  more  true  than  it  was  of  the  first. 
Such  is  the  typical  form  of  the  a  fo7'Hori  reasoning. 

This  reasoning  is  illustrated  by  such  an  argument  as  the 
following : 

“  Men  are  always  very  careful  about  choosing  a  good 
horse  because  a  great  deal  depends  upon  it,  but  they 
should  be  far  more  careful  about  choosing  a  good  wife 
because  far  more  depends  upon  it.”  * 

This  reasoning  assigns  the  choice  of  a  good  wife  to  the 
class  of  choices  which  ought  to  be  made  with  great  care, 
on  the  basis  of  its  membership  ih  the  class  of  choices 
upon  which  a  great  deal  depends,’  this  latter  class  being 
wholly  included  in  the  class  of  choices  which  should  be. 
carefully  made.  According  to  this  analysis,  the  reasoning 
is  of  the  ordinary  deductive  form.  'But  it  will  be  noted 
that  the  middle  term,  although  defined  as  the  claSs  of 
choices  on  which  much  depends,  is  also  designated  more 
vaguely  as  the  class  of  choices  to  which  the  choice  of  a 
horse  belongs.  The  class  of  choices  to  which  the  choice 
of  a  horse  belongs  is  included  in  the  class  of  choices  which 
should  be  carefully  made,  and  the  choice  of  a  wife  falls 
within  the  class  of  choices  to  which  the  choice  of  a 'horse 
belongs;  hence  the  choice  of  a  wife  should  be  made  with 
care.  Here  is  a  piece  of  reasoning  from  analogy, — the 

*  Thomas  More,  Utopia, 


ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI,  I45 


middle  term  being  at  first  undefined,  but  later  formulated 
exactly.  Yet  the  conclusion  is  surely  more  than  that  the 
choice  of  a  wife  should  be  made  with  care.  The  choice 
of  a  wife  should  be  made  with  greater  care  than  the  choice 
of  a  horse  demands,  inasmuch  as  upon  the  choice  of  a 
wife  more  depends.  The  syllogistic  form,  though  neces¬ 
sarily  involved  in  its  phraseology,  follows  substantially 
the  form  of  the  reasoning  from  analogy : 

I.  Choices  of  the  class  to  which  the  choice  of  a  horse 
belongs  (i.e.  choices  upon  which  much  de¬ 
pends),  but  belonging  to  that  class  more  indis¬ 
putably  than  does  the  choice  of  a  horse,  should 
be  made  with  more  care  than  the  choice  of  a 
horse. 

II.  The  choice  of  a  wife  belongs  to  the  class  of  choices 
to  which  the  choice  of  a  horse  belongs,  but 
belongs  to  that  class  more  indisputably  than 
does  the  choice  of  a  horse. 

III.  The  choice  of  a  wife  should  be  made  with  more 
care  than  the  choice  of  a  horse. 

Such  reasoning,  it  is  evident,  is  only  an  intensification 
of  the  reasoning  from  analogy,  hence  the  previous  obser¬ 
vations  upon  that  type  will  in  the  main  apply  to  the 
reasoning  and  argument  a  fortiori. 


EXERCISES. 

I.  Analyze  the  reasoning  implicit  in  each  of  the  follow¬ 
ing  arguments,  refuting  it  whenever  possible.  State 
whether  the  argument  is  from  analogy  or  a  fortiori. 

(a)  Through  his  naked  eye  man  sees  less  than  six 


146  ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI. 

thousand  stars;  through  a  powerful  telescope  he  may 
see  a  hundred  million.  Is  there  not  a  similar  exalta¬ 
tion  of  all  his  faculties  as  they  expand  under  true 
culture  ? 

{b)  Every  man  that  striveth  for  the  mastery  is  temperate 
in  all  things.  Now  they  do  it  to  obtain  a  corruptible 
crown,  but  we  an  incorruptible. — I.  Corinthians^  9-25. 

(c)  I  consider  a  human  soul  without  education  like 
marble  in  the  quarry,  which  shows  none  of  its  inherent 
beauties  until  the  skill  of  the  polisher  fetches  out  the 
colors,  makes  the  surface  shine,  and  discovers  every  orna¬ 
mental  cloud,  spot,  and  vein  that  runs  through  the  body 
of  it. — Joseph  Addison. 

id')  Seeing  that  the  spinal  cord  and  medulla  oblongata 
are  found  capable  of  originating  muscular  contractions, 
we  are  entitled  to  suppose  that  the  far  larger  masses  that 
make  up  the  brain  may  be  the  sources  of  a  much  more 
abundant  and  conspicuous  activity  than  these  examples 
afford. — Alexander  Bain :  Senses  and  Intellect,  p.  78. 

(e)  The  cheaper  the  cost  of  transmission,  the  larger  the 
bulk  of  freight  which  can  be  carried  for  the  same  sum. 
And  so,  the  smaller  the  amount  of  mental  energy  required 
to  understand  the  words  a  writer  uses,  the  larger  the 
quantity  of  thought  which  he  can  comprehend.  This  is 
Spencer’s  theory  of  economy  as  applied  to  style. 

(y)  The  Academy  has  rather  a  bright  idea.  It  suggests 
that  inasmuch  as  the  Government  superintends  the  con¬ 
struction  of  houses  and  compels  builders  to  construct 
them  properly,  the  Government  might  also  superintend  the 
construction  of  novels.  Without  doubt  there  are  hosts  of 
novels  which  are  built  of  excellent  materials,  but  which 
are  constructed  so  badly  that  they  prove  to  be  disastrous 
failures.  If  a  competent  Government  official — say  Sir 


ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI.  147 


Walter  Besant  or  some  other  thoroughly  good  and  ex¬ 
perienced  workman — were  to  examine  the  plot  of  every 
new  novel,  and  to  point  out  to  the  author  such  changes 
as  would  make  it  coherent  and  safe,  there  would  be  a  vast 
improvement  in  that  particular  field  of  literature.  The 
Government  already  exercises  a  censorship  over  plays  in 
order  that  they  may  be  made  to  meet  the  requirements  of 
Mrs.  Grundy.  If  it  can  thus  oversee  the  construction  of 
plays  with  a  view  to  making  them  moral,  it  can  surely 
oversee  the  construction  of  novels  in  order  to  make  them 
fit  additions  to  our  literature. 

(g)  Thus  in  poetry,  the  expression  is  that  which  charms 
the  reader  and  beautifies  the  design,  which  is  only  the 
outlines  of  the  fables.  It  is  true  the  design  must  of  itself 
be  good;  if  it  be  vicious,  or,  in  one  word,  unpleasing, 
the  cost  of  coloring  is  thrown  away  upon  it.  It  is  an 
ugly  woman  in  a  rich  habit,  set  out  with  jewels;  nothing 
can  become  her.  But  granting  the  design  to  be  moder¬ 
ately  good,  it  is  like  an  excellent  complexion  with  in¬ 
different  features;  the  white  and  red  well  mingled  on 
the  face  make  what  was  before  but  passable  appear 
beautiful. — John  Dryden:  Parallel  between  Poetry  and 
Painting, 

{h)  Mr.  Stelling  concluded  that  Tom’s  brain,  being 
peculiarly  impervious  to  etymology  and  demonstrations, 
was  peculiarly  in  need  of  being  ploughed  and  harrowed 
by  these  patent  implements;  it  was  his  favorite  metaphor, 
that  the  classics  and  geometry  constituted  that  culture  of 
the  mind  which  prepared  it  for  the  reception  of  any  sub¬ 
sequent  crop.  I  say  nothing  against  Mr.  Stelling’s 
theory;  if  we  are  to  have  one  regimen  for  all  minds,  his 
seems  to  me  as  good  as  any  other.  I  only  know  it  turned 
out  as  uncomfortably  for  Tom  Tulliver  as  if  he  had  been 


148  ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI. 


plied  with  cheese  in  order  to  remedy  a  gastric  weakness 
which  prevented  him  from  digesting  it.  It  is  astonishing 
what  a  different  result  one  gets  by  changing  the  metaphor! 
— George  Eliot :  The  Mill  on  the  Floss. 

(i)  Money  is  now  exactly  what  mountain  promontories 
over  public  roads  were  in  old  times.  The  barons  fought 
for  them  fairly : — the  strongest  and  cunningest  got  them  ; 
then  fortified  them ;  and  made  every  one  who  passed 
below  pay  toll.  Well,  capital  now  is  exactly  what  crags 
were  then.  Men  fight  fairly  (we  will,  at  least,  grant  so 
much,  though  it  is  more  than  we  ought)  for  their  money; 
but,  once  having  got  it,  the  fortified  millionaire  can  make 
everybody  who  passes  below  pay  toll  to  his  million,  and 
build  another  tower  of  his  money  castle.  And  I  can  tell 
you,  the  poor  vagrants  by  the  roadside  suffer  now  quite 
as  much  from  the  bag-baron  as  ever  they  did  from  the 
crag-baron.  Bags  and  crags  have  just  the  same  result  on 
rags. — John  Ruskin  :  Crown  of  Wild  Olive  ;  Work. 

(y)  An  apple-tree,  if  you  take  out  every  day,  for  a 
number  of  days,  a  load  of  loam  and  put  in  a  load  of  sand 
about  its  roots,  will  find  it  out.  An  apple-tree  is  a  stupid 
kind  of  creature,  but  if  this  treatment  be  pursued  for  a 
short  time  it  will  feel  and  will  manifest  the  effects  of  it. 
And  if  you  take  out  of  State  street  the  ten  honestest 
merchants,  and  put  in  ten  roguish  persons,  controlling 
the  same  amount  of  capital,  it  will  not  be  long  before 
society  knows  the  difference.  Its  growth  is  less  sturdy 
and  its  heart  less  sound. 

{k)  Could  a  linguist,  could  a  grammarian,  could  even 
a  mathematician  have  seen  what  she  did,  have  witnessed 
their  appearance  together,  and  heard  their  history  of  it, 
without  feeling  that  circumstances  had  been  at  work  to 
make  them  peculiarly  interesting  to  each  other  ?  How 


ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI.  i49 

much  more  must  an  imaginist  like  herself  be  on  fire  with 
speculation  and  foresight! — Jane  Austen:  Emma. 

(/)  “I  certainly  have  not  the  talent  which  some  people 
possess/'  said  Darcy,  “of  conversing  easily  with  those 
I  have  never  seen  before.  I  cannot  catch  their  tone  of 
conversation  or  appear  interested  in  their  concerns,  as  I 
often  see  done." 

“  My  fingers,"  said  Elizabeth,  “  do  not  move  over  this 
instrument  in  the  masterly  manner  which  I  see  so  many 
women’s  do.  They  have  not  the  same  force  or  rapidity, 
and  do  not  produce  the  same  expression.  But  then  I 
have  always  supposed  it  to  be  my  own  fault — because  I 
would  not  take  the  trouble  of  practicing.  It  is  not  that 
I  do  not  believe  my  fingers  as  capable  as  any  other 
woman’s  of  superior  execution." — Jane  Austen:  Pride 
and  Prejudice. 

{m^  To  rear  a  boy  under  what  parents  call  the 
‘  ‘  sheltered-life  system  ’  ’  is,  if  the  boy  must  go  into  the 
world  and  fend  for  himself,  not  wise.  .  .  .  Let  a  puppy 
eat  the  soap  in  the  bathroom  or  chew  a  newly-blacked 
boot.  He  chews  and  chuckles,  until,  by  and  by,  he  finds 
out  that  blacking  and  Old  Brown  Windsor  make  him  very 
sick;  so  he  argues  that  soap  and  boots  are  not  wholesome. 
Any  old ‘dog  about  the  house  will  soon  show  him  the  un¬ 
wisdom  of  biting  big  dogs’  ears.  Being  young,  he 
remembers,  and  goes  abroad,  at  six  months,  a  well- 
mannered  little  beast,  with  a  chastened  appetite.  If  he 
had  been  kept  away  from  boots  and  soap  and  big  dogs  till 
he  came  to  the  full-grown  and  well-developed  teeth,  just 
consider  how  fearfully  sick  and  thrashed  he  would  be! 
Apply  that  notion  to  the  “  sheltered  life  "  and  see  how  it 
works. — Kipling:  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills ;  Thrown 
Away, 


15°  ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI. 


2.  Supply  a  suitable  analogy  by  which  one  might 
arrive  at  each  of  the  following  conclusions.  Write  out  a 
complete  argument  from  analogy  leading  to  one  of  these 
conclusions: 

{a)  Reading  many  books  produces  a  wide  culture. 

{b)  A  Wagner  concert  more  than  two  hours  in  length 
depletes  the  nervous  system. 

(c)  The  mental  training  of  an  individual  should  be 
based  on  a  scientific  examination  of  his  natural  endow¬ 
ments. 

{d)  Teaching  in  the  public  schools  should  be  part  of 
the  civil  service. 

♦  •  • 

[e)  Life  at  a  co-educational  college  is  a  benefit  to  the 
average  girl. 

(/*)  The  rich  and  the  poor*  are  mutually  dependent. 

[g)  Newspapers  should  contain  no  sensational  material. 

[h)  Healthful  mental  life  depends  upon  an  equilibrium 
Detween  the  activities  of  acquiring  and  imparting  knowl¬ 
edge.  , 

{i)  Professors  of  political  economy  are  not  good  judges 
of  the  best  financial  policy  for  a  nation. 

(/)  A  little  talent  in  an  essentially  common  person  is 
peculiarly  detestable. 

(k)  Freedom  of  thought  is  essential  to  intellectual 
growth. 

(/)  The  ability  to  write  well  can  be  acquired. 

(m)  Things  one  wishes  to  eat  are  usually  good  for  his 
health. 

(n)  Criticism  should  stimulate  rather  than  paralyze. 

(o)  Criminals  should  be  completely  isolated  from 
society  for  the  course  of  their  natural  lives. 


*  Or  capital  and  labor. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  ANALOGY  AND  A  FORTIORI.  151 


(/)  The  dormitory  system  for  colleges*  is  desirable. 

3.  Plan  out  a  line  of  argument  by  which,  using  the 
a  foriiori  reasoning,  each  of  the  following  conclusions 
might  be  established.  Write  an  a  fortiori  argument  lead¬ 
ing  to  one  of  them : 

{a)  Borrowed  books  should  be  used  with  especial  care. 

{f)  Social  graces  are  particularly  needed  in  family  life. 

(c)  Good  teachers  should  be  assigned  to  the  primary 
grades. 

id')  Eight  hours  of  daily  work  should  be  the  maximum 
for  a  college  student. 

{e)  The  study  of  music  f  is  an  essential  part  of  educa¬ 
tion. 

(/')  Gymnasium  work  should  be  required  of  all  students 
in  college. 

(^)  Students  should  take  a  great  deal  of  outdoor 
exercise. 

{h)  Every  woman  should  be  able  to  earn  her  own  living. 

(/)  Women  who  desire  to  do  so  should  enter  the  pro¬ 
fession  of  medicine.  I 

(/)  Cooking  and  sewing  should  be  taught  to  girls  in 
the  public  schools. 

*  A  certain  college  may  be  specified. 

f  Any  other  subject  may  be  substituted. 

\  Any  other  profession  or  business  may  be  substituted. 


APPENDIX  A. 


INDUCTIVE  REASONING  IN  MODERN  EDUCA- 

TIONAL  METHODS. 

The  essential  nature  of  inductive  reasoning  may  be  il¬ 
lumined  by  some  illustrations  of  its  more  obvious  uses,  both 
practical  and  theoretic.  One  particularly  interesting  illustra¬ 
tion  on  the  practical  side  is  here  presented  as  a  suggestion  to 
the  teacher.  Similarly  the  inductive  process  might  be  traced 
in  the  generalizations  of  popular  philosophy,  both  those 
which  have  crystallized  into  proverbs  and  those  which  have 
not  yet  assumed  an  exact  formulation,  in  superstitions,  both 
primitive  and  more  developed,  and  in  the  laws  determined 
by  every  branch  of  science. 

The  inductive  process  of  reasoning  has  recently  become 
very  conspicuous  in  our  methods  of  education.  The  old  idea 
of  education  was  to  give  a  student  all  the  generalizations  he 
needed,  and  let  him  only  apply  them  to  particular  cases. 
Thus,  in  mathematics  he  would  be  told  that  the  square  of  the 
hypothenuse  in  a  right-angled  triangle  equals  the  sum  of 
the  squares  of  the  other  two  sides ;  so  that  all  he  had  to  do 
when  he  wished  to  know  the  length  of  the  hypothenuse  in  a 
certain  right-angled  triangle  was  to  add  the  squares  of  the 
other  two  sides  and  extract  the  square  root.  In  language- 
study  he  learned  from  a  book  that  a  certain  combination  of 
letters  always  stands  for  a  certain  word,  so  that  he  needed 
only  when  he  met  this  particular  combination  of  letters,  to 
conclude  that  here,  as  everywhere  else,  it  had  the  meaning 
assigned  to  it  by  the  dictionary.  When  studying  literature, 
he  would  read  in  a  book  that  the  poetry  of  Milton  is  sonorous 
and  involved,  so  that  he  would  be  relieved  of  any  obligation 
to  do  more  than  notice  the  involutions  and  the  sonorities  in 

153 


154 


j4PPENDIX  a. 


that  particular  poem  of  Milton’s  which  he  chanced  to  be 
reading. 

The  introduction  of  the  laboratory  method  in  natural 
science  has,  however,  changed  all  this.  The  laboratory 
method  means  nothing  else  but  induction.  It  means  that 
the  student,  instead  of  accepting  the  inductive  conclusions 
of  other  people,  reaches  his  own,  from  facts  that  fall  under 
his  personal  observation.  Instead  of  being  told  that  an 
explosion  always  results  when  oxygen  and  hydrogen  are 
brought  together  and  ignited,  the  student  learns  that  this  is 
so  by  trying  it  several  times  for  himself.  He  learns  that  a 
salt  is  formed  by  the  union  of  an  acid  and  a  base,  because  he 
has  found  it  so  innumerable  times ;  that  a  submerged  body 
displaces  its  own  volume  of  water,  by  submerging  several 
bodies  of  known  volumes  and  measuring  the  water  dis¬ 
placed. 

This  method,  transferred  to  language-study,  has  given  us 
the  system  by  which  the  student,  beginning  to  read  before 
any  grammatical  principles  have  been  imparted,  formulates 
for  himself  the  law  that  a  certain  combination  of  letters  or 
sounds  always  means  a  certain  definite  thing ;  that  the  object 
of  a  verb  always  ends  in  certain  letters ;  or  that  nouns  with 
certain  meanings  are  always  neuter.  These  generalizations, 
formerly  given  to  the  student  in  the  form  of  rules  which  he 
must  apply,  must  now  be  discovered,  as  well  as  applied,  by 
himself. 

One  of  the  most  conspicuous  instances  of  the  use  of  the 
inductive  method  in  education  appears  in  the  modern  teach¬ 
ing  of  English.  In  this  subject  students  are  not  now  set  to 
master  general  principles  of  composition  from  books  of 
rhetoric,  but  are  required  to  formulate  these  for  themselves 
from  particular  pieces  of  literature  which  are  given  them  to 
study,  and  from  their  own  writing.  For  instance,  after  noting 
several  times  that  a  piece  of  prose  which  is  easy  to  read 
has  a  distinct  plan,  the  student  is  led  to  the  generalization 
that  all  pieces  of  prose  which  are  easy  to  read  have  a 
distinct  plan.  And  such  a  generalization  would  be  still 
further  confirmed  if  several  times,  when  the  student  has 
taken  care  to  have  a  plan,  his  writing  has  proved  easy  to 
read. 

In  much  the  same  way  he  determines  laws  for  the  employ¬ 
ment  of  certain  methods  in  the  processes  of  description  and 
exposition,  for  the  use  of  unified  paragraphs,  clear  sentences, 
and  suggestive  words.  He  is  not  told  that  concrete  words 
produce  a  sharper  effect  upon  the  reader’s  mind  than  abstract 


JiPPENDIX  A. 


155 


ones,  but  discovers  the  truth  for  himself,  to  apply  as  he  finds 
occasion  for  it. 

Such  typical  examples  of  the  use  of  the  inductive  method 
in  education  may  serve  to  represent  the  others.  The  study 
of  history  by  the  seminary  method  of  individual  research,  and 
the  establishment  of  psychological  principles  by  experiment, 
will  at  once  suggest  themselves  as  supplementary  illustra¬ 
tions. 


APPENDIX  B. 


THE  RELATIONS  BETWEEN  INDUCTIVE  AND 
DEDUCTIVE  REASONING. 

In  the  text  has  been  implied  the  popular  view  of  the  rela¬ 
tions  between  induction  and  deduction  ;  namely,  that  they 
are  two  processes,  directly  opposed  to  one  another.  Induc¬ 
tion,  we  have  said,  judges  of  the  class  from  its  members ;  deduc¬ 
tion,  of  the  members  from  their  class.  Technically,  the  one 
is  said  to  pass  from  particular  truths  to  a  general  truth,  the 
other  from  a  general  to  a  particular  truth.  That  is,  induc¬ 
tion  proceeds  from  the  particular  truths  that  each  of  four 
cats  has  claws,  to  the  general  truth  that  all  cats  have  claws ; 
while  deduction,  from  the  general  truth  that  all  cats  have 
claws,  derives  the  particular  truth  that  this  cat  has  claws. 
The  two  processes  are  thus  seen  to  move  in  opposite  direc¬ 
tions.  Induction  is  said  to  be  the  means  by  which  one 
builds  up  his  conception  of  a  certain  class  ;  deduction  the 
means  by  which  he  determines  the  membership  of  a  given 
individual  in  that  class. 

Induction  and  deduction  may  thus  be  said,  according  to  the 
common  conceptions  of  their  relations,  to  start  from  different 
points,  and  by  moving  in  different  directions  reach  different 
conclusions.  Induction  begins  with  facts,  the  logicians  say; 
deduction  with  principles.  Or,  induction  starts  from  particu¬ 
lar  facts,  deduction  from  a  general  truth.  Induction  pro¬ 
ceeds  toward  a  judgment  of  the  class  as  a  whole  from  judg¬ 
ments  of  some  of  its  separate  members,  on  the  assumption 
that  what  is  true  of  several  of  these  members  is  true  of  the 
class  as  a  whole.  Deduction  moves  toward  a  judgment  of 
some  particular  member  of  the  class,  from  a  judgment  of  the 
class  as  a  whole,  on  the  assumption  that  what  is  true  of  the 
class  is  true  of  each  of  its  members.  And,  finally,  induction 

156 


APPEmiX  B. 


157 


arrives  at  a  conclusion  unlimited  both  as  to  time  and  as  to 
the  class  which  it  involves ;  while  deduction  leads  to  a  con¬ 
clusion  limited  to  one  particular  individual  in  the  class,  and 
to  one  particular  period  of  time.  This  distinction  may  be 
further  pursued.  The  inductive  conclusion,  as  we  have  noted, 
characterizes  the  whole  of  a  certain  class,  assigns  that  class 
in  ioto  to  a  certain  other  class.  All  iron  is  heavy,  all  the  good 
die  young,  all  curses  come  home  to  roost,  all  birds  of  a  feather 
flock  together.  There  is  no  limitation  placed  upon  the  con¬ 
clusion  within  the  limits  of  the  class  itself.  The  deductive 
conclusion,  on  the  other  hand,  is  limited  to  a  single  member 
in  the  class  concerned.  It  declares,  not  that  all  iron  is  heavy, 
but  that  this  particular  piece  is  heavy ;  not  that  all  Quakers 
say  “  thee  ”  and  “  thou,”  but  that  this  particular  Quaker  is 
certain  to  say  “  thee  ”  and  “  thou.”  The  inductive  and  the 
deductive  conclusions  differ,  then,  in  the  range  of  their 
characterization. 

The  inductive  conclusion  is  unlimited  with  reference  not 
only  to  the  class  which  it  characterizes,  but  with  reference  to 
the  time  with  which  it  deals.  Though  present  in  tense,  it 
refers  not  to  the  present  alone,  but  to  all  time — past,  present, 
and  future.  “Water  seeks  its  level,”  means  not  only  that  it 
does  so  at  the  present  minute,  but  that  it  has  done  so  in  the 
past  and  presumably  will  continue  to  do  so  in  the  future. 
Anemones  always  bloom  in  the  spring ;  God  always  tempers 
the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb ;  a  fair  day  always  follows  a  red 
sunset — in  all  these  cases  the  time-reference  is  unlimited. 
The  inductive  conclusion  is  sometimes  regarded  as  having  no 
concern  with  time,  as  being  an  absolute,  timeless  generaliza¬ 
tion  or  law ;  but  it  should  rather  be  viewed  as  including  all 
time,  having  validity  alike  for  past,  present,  and  future. 

In  sharp  contrast  with  the  unlimited  time-reference  of  the 
inductive  conclusion  is  the  particular  location  in  time  of  the 
deductive  conclusion.  “  The  Columbia  is  a  good  make  of 
wheel,  ’  we  say,  not  meaning  necessarily  that  it  has  been  good 
in  the  past,  still  less  that  it  is  certain  to  be  in  the  future.  It 
simply  is  at  the  present  moment.  Or  some  one  declares  that 
Bryan  will  be  the  next  President  of  the  United  States,  with 
no  explicit  reference  either  to  past  or  to  present.  Or,  finally, 
we  may  assert  that  the  late  war  with  Spain  was  brought  about 
by  the  politicians,  referring  plainly  not  to  present  or  to  future 
time,  but  to  the  past  alone. 

In  brief,  then,  we  may  agree  that  with  reference  both  to 
class  and  to  time  the  inductive  conclusion  is  unlimited,  the 
deductive  conclusion  limited.  This  is,  of  course,  only  put- 


158 


APPENDIX  B, 


ting  into  other  phraseology  the  statement  commonly  made 
that  the  inductive  conclusion  is  general  or  universal,  the  de¬ 
ductive  conclusion  specific  or  particular. 

This  antithesis  which  we  have  recognized  between  the  in¬ 
ductive  and  the  deductive  processes  of  reasoning  is  one  sup¬ 
ported  by  history.  The  deductive  process  was  recognized 
and  analyzed  by  Aristotle  centuries  before  the  inductive  proc¬ 
ess  was  noticed  at  all.  It  was  not  until  Bacon,  in  the  Ad- 
va7ice7nent  of  Lear7ii7ig,  called  attention  to  the  inductive 
reasoning  as  a  method  of  scientific  research,  that  this  mode 
of  thinking  was  explicitly  recognized;  and  even  then  it  was 
considered  not  as  a  logical  instrument  of  general  usefulness, 
but  only  as  a  means  to  discoveries  in  natural  science.  This 
late  recognition  of  inductive  reasoning  is  doubtless  a  prime 
cause  for  the  pronounced  tendency  on  the  part  of  logicians 
to  set  it  in  direct  opposition  to  deduction,  regarding  the  two 
processes  as  essentially  different,  even  antagonistic,  in  their 
nature. 

This  tendency  has  not,  however,  been  so  universal  as  to 
prevent  the  recognition,  in  certain  quarters,  of  the  close  inter¬ 
dependence  of  these  two  processes  of  reasoning.  The  appre¬ 
ciation  of  this  relationship  has  even  gone  so  far  as  to  attempt 
the  reduction  of  the  two  processes  to  one.  It  is  easy  to  see 
how  this  might  be  effected. 

All  reasoning  may  be  regarded  as  ultimately  inductive. 
If  we  examine  any  piece  of  deductive  reasoning  we  shall  find 
that  it  rests  upon  some  underlying  process  of  thought.  You 
may  come  to  the  conclusion,  before  tasting  your  glass  of 
lemonade,  that  it  is  sour,  but  in  order  to  come  to  this  con¬ 
clusion  you  must  first 'have  arrived  at  the  inductive  general¬ 
ization,  “  All  lemonade  tastes  sour.”  Underlying  deduction 
is  always  induction.  The  last  root  of  every  argument  is 
always  inductive.  The  final  conclusion  may  be  reached  by  a 
deductive  argument,  but  supporting  this  and  making  it  pos¬ 
sible  will  be  found  a  second  reasoning  process,  below  this 
perhaps  a  third  ;  and  however  far  you  descend  you  are  sure 
to  come  at  last  to  an  inductive  process  of  reasoning  the 
foundation  of  the  whole. 

Deduction,  in  short,  is  only  a  further  stage  of  induction. 
It  only  makes  explicit  what  was  implied  in  the  inductive  con¬ 
clusion.  If  you  once  come  to  believe  that  “  All  deer  are  afraid 
of  men,”  it  is  quite  superfluous  to  conclude  further  that  this 
particular  deer  is  sure  to  be  afraid  of  men.  Your  inductive 
conclusion  has  told  you  that.  It  has  embraced  within  itself 
every  possible  deductive  conclusion  about  the  timidity  of 


APPENDIX  B. 


159 


particular  deer.  From  this  point  of  view,  then,  all  reasoning 
may  be  regarded  as  ultimately  inductive. 

But  in  another  aspect  all  reasoning  appears  as  ultimately 
deductive.  Every  particular  fact  which  supports  an  inductive 
conclusion  may  be  regarded  as  the  conclusion  of  a  deductive 
process  of  reasoning.  Thus  the  generalization  “  All  deer  are 
afraid  of  men,”  drawn  from  the  particular  facts  “  This  deer  is 
afraid  of  men,”  “  That  deer  is  afraid  of  men,”  “  The  deer  I 
saw  in  the  park  was  afraid  of  men,”  and  other  similar  ob¬ 
servations,  rests  ultimately  upon  deduction,  since  each  of 
these  particular  facts  is  established  by  a  deductive  process  of 
reasoning.  How  do  you  know  that  this  particular  deer 
was  afraid  of  men  ?  Undoubtedly  because  it  ran  from  them, 
trembling  as  they  approached.  Here  we  have,  then,  a  de¬ 
ductive  syllogism  supporting  each  particular  fact  in  the  in¬ 
ductive  process  of  reasoning. 

I.  All  animals  who  run  from  men  are  afraid  of  men. 

1 1.  This  deer  runs  from  men. 

HI.  This  deer  is  afraid  of  men. 

Further,  every  piece  of  induction  may  be  viewed  as  a  de¬ 
ductive  syllogism,  its  assumption  acting  as  the  major  prem¬ 
ise. 


I.  What  is  true  of  four  deer  Is  true  of  all. 

1 1.  It  is  true  of  four  deer  that  they  are  afraid  of  men. 

1 1 1.  It  is  true  of  all  deer  that  they  are  afraid  of  men. 

Both  these  attempts  to  reduce  all  reasoning  to  a  single 
form,  either  induction  or  deduction,  have  a  certain  interest 
for  us,  inasmuch  as  they  show  us  how  very  close  the  relation¬ 
ship  between  them  is ;  how,  in  spite  of  certain  apparent  dif¬ 
ferences  in  function,  they  are  interwoven  so  subtly  in  all  our 
mental  processes  that  to  say  which  is  the  basis  of  our  think¬ 
ing  is  quite  impossible.  All  attempts  to  determine  which 
process  is  foundation  and  which  superstructure  —  that  is, 
which  comes  first  in  our  mental  operations — must  always  be 
as  futile  as  the  world-old  controversy  between  intuitionalists 
and  experientialists  in  philosophy — of  which  controversy 
this  is,  indeed,  a  branch.  Ultimately  the  question  becomes 
one  of  psychology.  Is  the  child  born  with  knowledge  of 
certain  general  principles  which  serve  to  interpret  all  his 
particular  experiences  }  or  is  he  merely  beaten  upon  by  suc¬ 
cessive  experiences,  meaningless  at  first,  but  finally  organized 
by  him  into  general  laws  or  principles  ?  Which  comes  first 


i6o 


APPENDIX  B. 


in  the  experience  of  the  child,  his  notions  of  class  or  his 
ideas  of  individuals? 

To  such  inquiries  as  this,  modern  philosophy  has  but  one 
answer.  Neither  intuition  nor  experience  is  first,  neither  the 
class  nor  the  individual,  but  both  arise  together  in  the  be¬ 
ginnings  of  the  child’s  consciousness.  As  we  push  backward 
toward  the  beginnings  of  consciousness,  we  reach  the  point 
at  which  the  child  knows  nothing  explicitly  about  any  class 
of  objects  or  any  individual  object,  but  is  simply  rained  upon 
by  external  stimuli,  heat,  light,  color,  and  the  rest,  each 
arousing  some  faint  sensation,  but  this  sensation  not  sharply 
discriminated  by  the  child  from  any  other  sensation.  Little 
by  little,  however,  these  sensations  come  to  be  recognized  as 
different  from  each  other ;  that  is,  are  traced  back  to  differ¬ 
ent  objects.  And  in  so  far  as  they  seem  different,  they  are, 
of  course,  recognized  as  fundamentally  alike.  Without  a 
basis  of  identity  no  discrimination  is  possible.  Thus,  the 
sense  of  difference  and  the  idea  of  identity  arise  simultane¬ 
ously ;  the  notions  of  class  and  of  individual  spring  from  the 
same  sheath.  Certain  sensations  of  color,  let  us  say,  are 
traced  to  different  objects,  though  all  differing  from  sensa¬ 
tions  of  heat  or  of  outline.  Color-sensations  thus  come  to 
constitute  a  class  made  up  of  individual  color-sensations. 
This  done,  the  whole  course  of  inductive  and  deductive 
reasoning  lies  open.  The  shadowy  sense  of  class  is  devel¬ 
oped  into  clearness  by  successive  inductions  based  upon 
observations  of  certain  members  of  the  class.  Vague  judg¬ 
ments  as  to  individual  members  of  the  class  are  defined  by 
clearer  notions  of  the  class  as  a  whole.  And  thus  the  re¬ 
ciprocal  process  goes  on  simultaneously,  induction  proceed¬ 
ing  no  faster  than  deduction,  deduction  no  further  than 
induction. 

The  appeal  to  psychology,  then,  has  led  us  to  conclude 
that  the  processes  of  induction  and  of  deduction  arise  side 
by  side  out  of  the  chaos  of  the  child’s  earliest  consciousness. 
Neither  can,  in  last  analysis,  be  said  to  precede  the  other, 
since  they  are  two  phases  or  aspects  of  the  same  process  of 
thought,  each  involving  and  each  resting  upon  the  other. 
We  may  see  in  any  given  case  that  a  deductive  is  supported 
by  an  inductive  process,  or  an  inductive  by  a  deductive  ;  but, 
passing  down  through  as  many  strata  as  we  please,  we  shall 
at  the  last  stratum  always  find  the  two,  the  judgment  of  class 
and  the  judgment  of  individual,  arising  together,  mutually 
involved,  as  the  processes  of  induction  and  deduction  are 
throughout  their  history. 


APPENDIX  B. 


i6i 


In  conclusion,  we  may  repeat,  induction  is  not,  strictly 
speaking,  the  basis  of  deduction,  nor  deduction  the  fulfill¬ 
ment  of  induction ;  but  induction  is  both  the  foundation  and 
the  superstructure  of  deduction  —  deduction  both  the 
starting-point  and  the  goal  of  induction.  Neither  can  stand 
without  the  aid  of  the  other.  Each  is  essential,  not  alone 
to  the  completeness,  but  to  the  very  existence  of  the  other. 


APPENDIX  C. 


DEBATING. 

Though  the  subject  of  debating  is  not  necessarily  included 
under  the  head  of  argumentation,  some  slight  discussion  of  , 
it  seems  advisable,  inasmuch  as  its  connection  with  argu¬ 
mentation  is  so  close.  The  relations  and  the  essential  dis¬ 
tinction  between  the  two  processes  should  at  the  outset  be 
clearly  defined.  Debating  is  often  regarded  simply  as  oral 
argument.  All  oral  argument  is  not,  however,  strictly  speak¬ 
ing,  debate,  while  some  written  argument  is  debate,  being 
frequently  committed  to  paper  before  being  orally  delivered  ; 
hence  this  distinction  falls  to  the  ground.  The  fundamental 
difference  between  the  two  processes  lies  deeper  than  this,  in 
the  fact  that  debate  is  an  affair  of  three  parties,  argument  of 
two.  In  ordinary  argument  only  the  speaker*  and  the  audi¬ 
ence*  are  concerned.  The  speaker  attempts  to  set  up  in  the 
mind  of  the  hearer  some  conclusion  at  which  he  himself  has 
already  arrived,  the  hearer  perhaps  resisting  for  a  time  the 
establishment  of  this  conclusion,  perhaps  permitting  it  with¬ 
out  a  struggle.  In  debate,  however,  three  participate :  the 
speaker  and  the  audience,  as  before,  but  also  a  representative 
of  the  resisting  element  in  the  mind  of  the  audience — the 
speaker’s  opponent.  He  embodies  and  expresses  the  opposi¬ 
tion  felt  by  the  audience  to  the  speaker’s  conclusion,  as  the 
speaker  embodies  and  expresses  its  acquiescence.  The  two 
opposing  debaters,  then,  represent  each  a  distinct  movement 
of  the  mind  of  the  audience  toward  or  away  from  a  certain 
conclusion,  and  of  these  the  one  who  so  develops  and  inten¬ 
sifies  the  movement  he  represents  that  it  becomes  dominant 

*  The  term  speaker  is  intended  to  cover  both  speaker  and  writer ; 
the  term  audience,  both  reader  and  hearer. 


162 


y^FPENDIX  C. 


163 


over  and  ultimately  displaces  the  other — this  debater  is  said 
to  win  the  debate.  This  means,  not,  indeed,  that  he  con¬ 
vinces  his  opponent  of  the  truth  of  his  position,  as  would  be 
the  case  were  he  engaged  in  simple  argument ,  but  in  the 
strife  with  this  opponent  to  bring  the  audience  to  the  one 
conclusion  or  the  other,  he  has  gained  his  point.  He  h^s 
voiced  the  instinctive  tendencies  of  the  audience  toward  the 
conclusion  he  represents,  so  effectively  that  they  believe  in 
that  conclusion  far  more  intelligently  and  far  more  strongly 
than  they  did  at  the  outset.  Perhaps  they  did  not  even  know 
that  they  did  believe  in  this  conclusion  before  it  was  cham¬ 
pioned  by  the  debater.  There  was  only  in  their  minds  a  dim 
prepossession  toward  one  opinion,  or  an  equally  dim  reluc¬ 
tance  to  accept  another.  But  the  debater  has  brought  to 
articulate  and  reasonable  speech  all  these  formless  tendencies 
of  their  thought.  Their  blind  preferences  and  repulsions  he 
has  defined  into  expression.  Such  is  the  function  of  the 
V  debater. 

The  debater’s  task,  it  is  evident,  is  in  some  ways  more 
difficult  than  that  of  the  person  who  sustains  one  side  of  a 
simple  argument.  The  latter  may,  indeed  meet  a  certain  re¬ 
sistance,  but  this  resistance  is  often  of  an  unorganized  and 
ineffective  sort.  Usually  the  hearer  is  somewhat  unprepared 
for  the  attack  of  the  speaker,  and  submits  with  greater  or 
less  reluctance  to  be  led  toward  the  speaker’s  conclusion. 
Often,  particularly  in  the  case  of  political  or  religious  ad¬ 
dresses,  the  audience  is  already  inclined  toward  this  conclu¬ 
sion,  or  it  would  not  have  come  to  hear  the  argument.  If  not 
directly  inclined,  however,  its  resistance  is  dumb  and  inchoate, 
not  explicitly  declared. 

The  very  overtness  of  the  opposition  which  the  debater 
must  meet  may,  perhaps,  seem  to  afford  him  a  certain  advan¬ 
tage.  One  may  imagine  that  the  debater  is  not,  like  the  man 
engaged  in  simple  argument,  required  to  divine  the  objections 
to  his  conclusion  which  lurk  half  consciously  in  the  mind  of 
his  audience,  but,  having  these  objections  stated  openly,  he 
can  bend  all  his  energies  to  the  task  of  controverting  each  m 
turn.  But  this  advantage  is  by  no  means  so  considerable  as 
it  appears,  since  the  fact  that  his  opponent  professes  to  voice 
the  resistance  of  the  audience  to  the  conclusion  proposed,  by 
no  means  insures  his  actually  doing  so,  nor  absolves  the 
debater  from  the  necessity  of  satisfying  himself  that  ali  the 
objections  of  the  audience  have,  in  truth,  been  detected  by 
his  opponent,  and  presented,  each  with  its  proper  emphasis 
in  a  word,  that  he  is  not  buffeting  a  man  of  straw,  disproving 


164 


APPENDIX  C. 


considerations  that  have  no  place  in  the  minds  of  the  audi¬ 
ence,  while  allowing  others  to  flourish  there  unchecked. 

In  spite,  then,  of  the  fact  that  one’s  opponent  in  debating 
assumes  to  formulate  all  the  latent  objections  of  the  audience 
to  the  conclusion  proposed  on  the  other  side,  the  debater 
must  rely  upon  himself  to  discover  these  objections  as  well  as 
to  controvert  them.  And  this  consideration  brings  us  fairly 
to  the  essentials  for  successful  debating.  These  are,  of  course, 
involved  in  the  nature  of  the  process  itself.  Since  debating 
reduces  itself,  under  analysis,  to  an  explicit  presentation  on 
each  side  of  the  implicit  movement  of  the  mind  of  the  audi¬ 
ence  toward  or  away  from  a  certain  conclusion,  it  is  evident 
that  its  success  must  depend  upon  two  prime  conditions : 
First,  the  clearness  with  which  each  speaker  divines  the  un¬ 
spoken  reasonings  of  the  audience  ;  and,  second,  the  force 
with  which  these  reasonings  are  presented. 

It  is  a  commonplace  of  debating  that  each  speaker  must 
know  his  opponent’s  side  of  the  question  as  well  as  his  own. 
This  means,  of  course,  that  he  must  know  the  mind  of  the 
audience,  not  in  part  only,  but  as  a  whole ;  all  its  native 
repulsions  from  a  certain  conclusion,  as  well  as  all  its  latent 
prepossessions  toward  it.  He  must  study  the  subject  com¬ 
pletely,  in  order  that  he  may  have  in  hand  all  the  data,  which, 
if  possessed  by  any  individual  in  the  audience,  would  lead 
him  either  toward  or  away  from  the  conclusion  he  desires  to 
establish.  And  having  this  data  well  in  hand,  he  must  also 
know,  from  a  practical  study  of  logical  principles,  how  these 
facts  or  considerations  are  likely  to  be  used  by  the  audience 
as  confirmation  or  as  disproof  of  the  conclusion  he  seeks  to 
establish. 

This  done,  he  has  the  subject-matter  of  the  debate — the 
reasonings  of  the  audience  from  certain  data  both  toward  and 
away  from  the  debated  conclusion.  His  task  is  now  but  to 
fortify  those  reasonings  which  move  toward  the  conclusion 
he  represents,  and  bring  to  naught  those  which  tend  toward 
the  opposing  conviction.  The  second  condition  of  success  is, 
then,  the  forceful  presentation  of  the  audience’s  reasonings 
which  support  the  debater’s  conclusion,  and  the  complete 
overthrow  of  all  reasonings  which  oppose  it.  These  two  proc¬ 
esses  are  essential  in  every  debate.  They  are  sometimes 
known  as  positive  and  negative  proof,  respectively ;  more  often 
as  proof  and  refutation.  Under  the  latter  names  they  have 
become  familiar  in  the  previous  discussions  on  argument, 
hence  need  not  be  re-canvassed  here.  It  may,  however,  be 
noted  in  general  under  the  head  of  the  forcible  presentation 


.APPENDIX  C. 


165 


of  the  implicit  reasonings  of  an  audience,  that  nothing  yields 
more  to  this  end  than  a  careful  planning  of  the  presentation. 
Such  careful  planning  implies  that  the  reasonings  of  the 
audience  should  be  set  forth  distinctly  and  in  order,  each 
process  being  completely  unfolded,  and  no  process  being  re¬ 
peated  ;  that  the  emphasis  be  justly  distributed,  and  that  a 
cumulative  effect  be  secured.  All  these  are,  however,  the 
axioms  of  debate,  and  may  be  left  with  the  mere  statement. 

The  technical  details  of  debating  are  usually  so  familiar 
to  students,  that  they  will  need  no  detailed  consideration. 
The  question  should  be  formulated  affirmatively,  as ; 
“  Resolved,  That  the  administration  of  McKinley  has  con¬ 
tributed  to  the  prosperity  and  the  best  interests  of  this 
country.”  Two  parties,  evenly  divided  as  to  numbers,  should 
debate  the  question  on  the  affirmative  and  negative  sides. 
The  affirmative  side  aims  to  establish  the  conclusion  as 
stated  in  the  question  for  debate ;  the  negative,  to  establish 
the  contradictory  conclusion  :  “  The  administration  of  Mc¬ 
Kinley  has  not  contributed  to  the  prosperity  and  best  inter¬ 
ests  of  this  country.”  Each  side,  of  course,  attempts  not 
merely  to  establish  its  own  conclusion,  and  thus  indirectly 
to  overthrow  the  contradictory  conclusion,  but  endeavors  to 
disprove  directly  the  conclusion  of  the  opposite  party,  to 
the  end  that  its  own  conclusion  may  be  the  more  firmly 
established.  The  debate  on  each  side  is  organized  and 
headed  by  a  leader,  who  plans  it  from  the  beginning,  assign¬ 
ing  to  each  m.ember  of  his  own  party  his  share  in  the  com¬ 
mon  task. 

The  function  of  the  leader  is  thus  supremely  important. 
He  must  determine  what  points  on  his  side  shall  be  pre¬ 
sented,  if  time  forbids  the  use  of  all ;  in  what  order  they  shall 
appear,  how  much  time  and  emphasis  shall  be  given  to  each, 
what  part  of  the  debate  he  himself  shall  undertake,  and  what 
shall  be  given  to  each  of  his  colleagues,  so  that  the  whole 
ground  shall  be  adequately  covered,  and  no  part  of  it  be  cov¬ 
ered  twice.  He  must  himself  make  the  opening  and  the 
closing  speech  on  his  own  side.  In  his  first  speech  he  should 
usually  outline  the  field  of  debate,  stating  the  point  in  ques¬ 
tion,  getting  all  irrelevant  issues  out  of  the  way,  and  indi¬ 
cating  briefly  the  way  by  which  his  party  proposes  to  prove 
its  conclusion.  He  will  need  also  to  present  one  distinct 
phase  of  the  argument,  this  being  more  or  less  considerable 
according  to  the  number  of  his  colleagues.  If  he  has  but  one 
colleague,  he  must  necessarily  assume  a  larger  part  of  the 
argument  than  he  would  do  if  his  party  were  larger.  The 


i66 


APPENDIX  C. 


division  of  the  debate  for  assignment  to  various  people  is  a 
question  which  cannot  be  dogmatically  passed  upon,  since  it 
must  be  decided  by  the  exigencies  of  the  particular  case.  In 
a  debate  for  municipal  ownership  and  control  of  street 
railways,  for  instance,  the  positive  proof  falls  under  two 
or  more  heads,  such  as  arguments  based  on  economic,  on 
social,  and  on  ethical  considerations,  or  arguments  of  abstract 
justice  and  arguments  of  expediency  ;  and  the  negative  proof 
is  also  divisible,  not  only  into  direct  and  indirect  refutation, 
but  direct  refutation  into  the  disproof  of  the  advisability  of 
several  different  plans,  as  private  ownership  of  street  rail¬ 
ways  with  private  control,  private  ownership  with  public  con¬ 
trol,  and  public  ownership  with  private  control.  In  such  a 
debate  the  problem  of  assignment  to  the  various  participants 
is  of  necessity  quite  different  from  the  problem  presented  by 
a  debate  on  the  comparatively  simple  question,  “  Resolved, 
That  the  profits  of  the  railroads  are  excessive,”  in  which  case 
the  grand  divisions  of  positive  proof  and  refutation  are 
hardly  further  divisible,  unless  the  positive  argument  resolve 
itself  into  the  proof  that  rates  rising  above  a  certain  figure 
are  excessive,  and  the  proof  that  railroad  rates  actually  do 
rise  above  this  figure.  A  careful  study  of  the  possibilities 
and  requirements  of  each  particular  subject  for  debate  is 
the  only  means  of  attaining  a  satisfactory  division  of  the 
question. 

The  closing  speech  of  the  leader,  following  those  of  his 
colleagues,  should  be  largely  devoted  to  summing  up  the 
arguments  on  his  side  and  on  the  other,  showing  what  his 
side  has  proved  and  disproved,  and  calling  attention  to  what 
the  other  side  has  failed  to  establish  or  to  overthrow.  As  a 
rule,  no  new  material  should  be  introduced  into  the  closing 
speech,  though  a  necessary  refutation  is  permitted.  The 
closing  speech  should  be  as  carefully  prepared  as  the  open¬ 
ing,  in  anticipation  of  the  line  of  argument  to  be  taken  by 
the  opposition,  and  should  cover  the  entire  ground  of  de¬ 
bate. 

The  conventional  order  of  debate  is  as  follows  : 

1.  Leader  on  the  affirmative  side. 

2.  Leader  on  the  negative  side. 

3.  First  affirmative  colleague. 

4.  First  negative  colleague. 

5.  Second  affirmative  colleague. 

6.  Second  negative  colleague,  etc. 

7.  Leader  on  the  affirmative. 

8.  Leader  on  the  negative. 


/1PPENDIX  C 


167 


The  affirmative  leader  thus  has  the  advantage  of  making 
the  opening,  the  negative  leader  that  of  making  the  closing 
speech  in  the  debate.  Each  speaker  is  usually  given  a  defi¬ 
nite  time  for  his  argument,  and  is  called  to  order  by  the 
chairman  if  he  exceeds  it. 

According  to  established  usage,  each  speaker,  on  taking 
the  floor,  addresses  the  chairman,  and  is  recognized  by  him 
before  beginning  his  speech.  Every  remark  made  upon  the 
floor  is  addressed,  not  to  one’s  opponents  or  allies,  but  to  the 
chair  and  the  audience.  No  debater  is  referred  to  by  name, 
but  as  “The  leader  on  the  negative  side,”  or  “The  second 
speaker  on  the  affirmative.”  For  any  personal,  or  in  any  way 
unbecoming  remarks,  the  chairman  is  authorized  to  call  the 
offender  to  order. 

Debate  is  sometimes  written  out  in  full  and  read  from 
manuscript,  but  in  so  doing  half  its  force  is  lost.  If  the  par¬ 
ticipants  cannot  speak  quite  extemporaneously,  they  may 
use  slight  notes  of  the  headings  of  their  arguments,  written 
on  a  small  paper,  preferably  not  larger  than  a  visiting-card, 
held  in  the  hand.  They  should  be  as  independent  as  possi¬ 
ble,  even  of  this  aid,  but  the  consciousness  of  its  availability 
in  case  of  need  sometimes  imparts  the  desired  confidence. 
The  novice  in  debating  should  not  fear  present  failure  so 
much  as  the  acquisition  of  habits  that  will  effectually  pre¬ 
vent  future  success.  As,  in  learning  a  new  game,  the  score 
is  nothing,  but  the  stroke,  or  method  of  play,  everything,  so 
in  debating ;  to  win  this  debate  or  that  is  a  matter  of  small 
consequence,  unless  one  be  at  the  same  time  learning  the 
clean  stroke  and  the  perfect  poise  that  will  insure  future 
victories. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  supplement  this  short  account  of 
the  theory  of  debating  by  the  report  of  a  practical  course  in 
debating  given  at  Vassar  College  for  the  past  two  years  by  the 
departments  of  Economics  and  of  English,*  conjointly.  This 
course  is  named  on  the  English  side  “  Advanced  Argumenta¬ 
tion  :  Oral  Debates”  ;  on  the  Economics  side,  “  The  Relation 
of  the  State  to  Monopolies,”  the  two  titles  indicating  respect¬ 
ively  the  subject-matter  and  the  form  of  the  course.  The 
class  meets  twice  a  week  through  one  semester.  After  two 
or  three  introductory  lectures  from  each  department,  on  the 
sources  of  the  material  and  the  general  theory  of  debate,  the 


*  The  idea  of  this  course  originated,  it  should  be  said,  with  Professor 
Herbert  E.  Mills,  of  the  department  of  Economics. 


/iPPENDIX  C. 


1 68 

students  themselves  take  charge  of  the  course.  Having  been 
assigned  at  the  beginning  of  the  semester  to  a  certain  place  on 
a  certain  debate,  that  of  leader  on  one  side  or  the  other,  col¬ 
league,  chairman,  or  critic,  each  student  fulfills  her  part  with¬ 
out  further  direction,  the  instructors  being  open  to  con¬ 
sultation,  and  always  present  at  the  debates  to  cri¬ 
ticise  or  commend,  but  taking  no  further  part  in  the  class 
exercises. 

The  list  of  questions  set  for  debate  in  the  year  1898-9 
follows.  Where  the  word  “  Brief  ”  follows  the  subject,  there 
is  no  oral  debate,  but  a  brief  is  presented  by  each  student  on 
one  side  or  the  other.  The  words  “  Brief  and  debate  ”  indi¬ 
cate  that  a  brief  upon  the  whole  subject  is  first  prepared  by 
each  student,  and  the  debate  is  then  conducted  by  certain 
members  of  the  class.  An  impromptu  debate  is  arranged  by 
requiring  each  student  to  canvass  the  entire  subject  on  both 
sides,  and  be  assigned  to  one  side  or  the  other  after  coming 
to  the  class. 

1.  Speculation  is  detrimental  to  the  interests  of  the  com¬ 
munity. 

2.  Stock-watering  is  detrimental  to  the  interests  of  the 
community. 

3.  The  profits  of  the  railroads  are  excessive.  (Brief.) 

4.  The  principle  of  “ charging  what  the  traffic  will  bear” 
is  the  only  practicable  method  of  determining  railroad 
rates. 

5.  An  amendment  should  be  made  to  the  Inter-state  Com¬ 
merce  Law  allowing  the  formation  of  pools,  subject  to  the 
approval  and  regulation  of  the  Inter-state  Commerce  Com¬ 
mission. 

6.  The  Inter-state  Commerce  Law  should  be  repealed. 

7.  The  experience  of  other  nations  is  favorable  to  state 
ownership  of  railroads.  (Brief.) 

8.  The  railroads  of  the  United  States  should  be  owned  and 
managed  by  the  National  Government. 

9.  The  Dartmouth  College  decision  was  an  unfortunate 
one  from  the  standpoint  of  public  welfare.  (Impromptu 
debate.) 

10.  Trusts  should  be  prohibited  by  law. 

11.  The  Standard  Oil  Trust  has  been  and  is  a  pernicious 
and  dangerous  combination.  (Impromptu  debate.) 

12.  The  National  Government  should  own  and  manage  the 
telegraph  service. 

13.  The  public  should  own  and  control  the  telephone 
service. 


yfPPENDIX  C  169 

14.  The  municipalities  should  own  and  manage  their  street 
railways. 

15.  The  municipalities  should  own  and  manage  their  gas 
and  electric  lighting  plants. 

16.  The  State  governments  should  own  the  forests. 


APPENDIX  D, 

UNCLASSIFIED  ARGUMENTS  FOR  ANALYSIS* 


“  I  KNOW  what  Latin  is  very  well,”  said  Maggie,  confidently. 
“  Latin's  a  language.  There  are  Latin  words  in  the  dictionary. 
There’s  bonus — a  gift.” 

“  Now,  you’re  just  wrong  there.  Miss  Maggie  !  ”  said  Tom, 
secretly  astonished.  “You  think  you’re  very  wise!  But 
‘bonus’  means  ‘good,’  as  it  happens — bonus,  bona,  bonum.” 

“  Well,  that’s  no  reason  why  it  shouldn’t  mean  ‘  gift,’  ”  said 
Maggie,  stoutly.  “  It  may  mean  several  things — almost  every 
word  does.  There’s  ‘  lawn  ’ — it  means  the  grass-plot,  as  well 
as  the  stuff  pocket-handkerchiefs  are  made  of.” 

George  Eliot ;  Mill  07i  the  Floss. 

“  There  are  some  very  odd  things  any  anatomist  can  tell, 
showing  how  our  recent  contrivances  are  anticipated  in  the 
human  body.  In  the  alimentary  canal  there  are  certain 
pointed  eminences  called  villi,  and  certain  ridges  called  val- 
vulce  conniventes.  The  makers  of  heating  apparatus  have  ex¬ 
actly  reproduced  the  first  in  the  ‘  pot  ’  of  their  furnaces,  and 
the  second  in  many  of  the  radiators  to  be  seen  in  our  public 
buildings.  The  object  in  the  body  and  in  the  heating  appa¬ 
ratus  is  the  same — to  increase  the  extent  of  surface.  We  mix 
hair  with  plaster  (as  the  Egyptians  mixed  straw  with  clay  to 
make  bricks),  so  that  it  shall  hold  more  firmly.  But  before 
man  had  any  artificial  dwelling,  the  same  contrivance  of  mix¬ 
ing  fibrous  threads  with  a  cohesive  substance  had  been  em- 

*Much  additional  material  may  be  gained  from  literary  sources, 
readily  accessible  ;  for  instance,  the  theological  arguments  in  Para¬ 
dise  Lost,  almost  any  of  Bacon’s  Essays,  Tennyson’s  Two  Voices,  the 
reasonings  of  Hamlet  and  other  characters  in  Shakespeare’s  plays, 
and,  for  refutation.  Lamb’s  Popular  P'a Hades  in  the  Last  Essays  op 
Elia.  For  other  suggestions,  see  the  Preface,  and  the  Exercises  at 
the  close  of  Chapter  VII. 


170 


APPEmiX  D. 


I7I 


ployed  in  the  jointed  fabric  of  his  own  spinal  column.  .  .  . 
The  dome,  the  round  and  the  Gothic  arch,  the  groined  roof, 
the  flying  buttress,  are  all  familiar  to  those  who  have  studied 
the  bony  frame  of  man.  All  forms  of  the  Uver,  and  all  the  J 
principal  kinds  of  hinges,  are  to  be  met  with  in  our  own 
frames.” 

O.  W.  Holmes  :  Poet  at  the  Breakfast-Table,  pp.  321-2. 


In  the  realm  of  poesy  American  women  have  to  their  credit 
some  notable  achievements.  Our  literature  has  been  appre¬ 
ciably  enhanced  by  the  writings  of  Mrs.  Sigourney,  Helen 
Hunt  Jackson,  Mrs.  Spofford,  Edith  M.  Thomas,  Emma  Laz¬ 
arus,  the  Cary  sisters,  Celia  Thaxter,  Mrs.  Dorr,  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  and  others.  The  novel  has  gained  a  higher  and  more 
dignified  place  in  the  esteem  of  the  reading  public  through 
the  works  of  Mrs.  Burnett,  Mrs.  Burton  Harrison,  Amelie 
Rives,  Julien  Gordon,  Amelia  E.  Barr,  Constance  Fenimore 
Woolson,  and  a  score  or  more  of  other  female  weavers  of 
romance. — I'Jew  York  Times. 


That  the  early  Aryans  were  acquainted  with  the  sea  seems 
unquestionable,  for  the  name  occurs,  with  very  little  change 
in  sound  and  hardly  any  in  meaning,  in  nearly  all  the  Indo- 
European  languages.  The  Lat.  ifiare,  whence  our  adjective 
marifie,  appears  in  Skr.  mira,  Russ.  7noru,  Lith.  mares,  Irish 
muir,  Welsh  mor,  Goth,  marei,  O.  H.  G.  mart.  Old  Norse 
mar^  Old  Eng.  mere. 

John  Fiske:  Excursions  of  an  Evolutionist,  p.  143. 

A  day  is  a  more  magnificent  cloth  than  any  muslin,  the 
mechanism  that  makes  it  is  infinitely  cunninger,  and  you 
shall  not  conceal  the  sleazy,  fraudulent,  rotten  hours  you 
have  slipped  into  the  piece,  nor  fear  that  any  honest  thread, 
or  straighter  steel,  or  more  inflexible  shaft,  will  not  testify  in 
the  web.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  :  Power, 

Let  us  begin  with  a  remark  which  sounds  somewhat  par¬ 
adoxical  :  the  poet  makes  use  not  only  of  others,  but  more 
particularly  of  himself,  his  own  writings ;  and  he  likewise 
makes  allusions  in  his  later  works  to  his  earlier  ones.  This 
is  not  always  done  so  palpably  as  to  be  at  once  apparent  to  a 
dull  perception.  When  we  see  The  Merry  IVives,  the 
Falstaff  who  appears  in  that  piece  necessarily  reminds  us  of 
the  character  of  the  same  name  in  “  Henry  IV.,”  and  no  one 
can  doubt  that  the  comedy  of  The  Merry  Wives  pre¬ 
supposes  “  Henry  IV.,”  and  that,  therefore,  it  must  have 


172 


APPENDIX  D. 


been  produced  later,  but  yet  not  much  later.  The  matter  is, 
however,  not  always  so  clear ;  indeed,  the  poet  himself  may 
be  unconscious  that  one  of  his  former  creations  is  exercising 
a  subtle  influence  upon  his  mind.  The  following  appears  to 
me  to  exemplify  what  I  have  in  my  mind  : 

In  one  of  those  fateful  monologues  spoken  by  Macbeth 
before  his  awful  deed,  ...  he  weighs  the  consequences  of  his 
intended  crime : 

‘  ‘  But  in  these  cases 

We  still  have  judgment  here  ;  that  we  but  teach 
Bloody  instructions,  which,  being  taught,  return 
To  plague  the  inventor  :  this  even-handed  justice 
Commends  the  ingredients  of  our  poison’d  chalice 
To  our  own  lips.” 

.  .  .  Why  was  it  just  the  poisoned  chalice  that  occurred 
to  Shakespeare.^  The  case,  surely,  is  not  a  usual  one  that  a 
person  with  the  intention  of  killing  another  should  poison  a 
cup  and  then  in  some  way  be  put  in  a  position  to  drink  it 
himself.  It  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  a  scene  of  one  of 
his  own  dramas  passed  before  his  mind.  You  remember  the 
highly  symbolical  concluding  scene  in  Hamlet  where  the 
crime  contrived  by  the  king  in  conjunction  with  Laertes 
recoils  upon  its  originators,  and  where  Hamlet  finally  forces 
the  king  to  drink  the  cup  which  the  latter  had  prepared  for 
him  ...  It  is  not  probable  that  in  making  Macbeth  speak 
those  lines  it  was  Shakespeare’s  object  to  allude  to  the 
catastrophe  in  Hamlet.  Involuntarily,  however,  justice 
presented  itself  to  him  in  the  image  of  that  scene. 

Bernhard  Ten  Brink  :  Five  Lectures  on  Shakespeare. 

Let  us  draw  a  lesson  from  nature,  which  always  works  by 
short  ways.  When  the  fruit  is  ripe,  it  falls.  When  the  fruit 
is  dispatched,  the  leaf  falls.  The  circuit  of  the  waters  is  mere 
falling.  The  walking  of  man  and  all  animals  is  a  falling  for¬ 
ward.  All  our  manual  labor  and  works  of  strength,  as  prying, 
splitting,  digging,  rowing,  and  so  forth,  are  done  by  dint  of 
continual  falling,  and  the  globe,  earth,  moon,  comet,  sun, 
star,  fall  forever  and  ever. 

Emerson  :  Essays,  First  Series,  Spiritual  Laws. 

There  is  never  any  Sunday  in  a  novel  proper.  The 
seventh  stitch  is  dropped,  and  the  thread  catches  directly 
over  from  Saturday  night  to  Monday  morning. 

A.  D.  T.  Whitney:  Odd  or  Eveji,  ch.  xxx.,  p.  213. 


APPENDIX  D, 


173 


In  1816  Mr.  Clay  voted  for  a  new  compensation  act  of 
Congress.  It  aroused  a  tornado  of  popular  wrath.  Not  even 
the  great  commoner  could  stand  against  this,  and  he  saga¬ 
ciously  resolved  to  try  and  weather  it.  Meeting  a  staunch 
supporter  who  had  turned  against  him,  he  said  ; 

“Jack,  you  have  a  good  flintlock,  haven’t  you  ?  ” 

“  Yes.” 

“  Did  it  ever  flash  in  the  pan  ?  ” 

“  Once  it  did,  but  only  once.” 

“  What  did  you  do  with  it  ?  Did  you  throw  it  away  ?  ” 

“  No,  I  picked  the  flint  and  tried  it  again.” 

“  Well,”  said  Mr.  Clay,  “  I  have  only  flashed  once — on  this 
compensation  bill — and  are  you  going  to  throw  me  away  ?  ” 

“  No,”  cried  the  hunter,  touched  in  his  tenderest  part ; 
“  no,  Mr.  Clay,  I  will  pick  the  flint  and  try  you  again.” 

Henry  Watterson  :  Oratory  of  the  Stump, 

Youth’s  Companion,  Oct.  27,  1898. 

Wild  flowers  that  seem  so  fresh  and  young  are,  singu¬ 
larly  enough,  the  especial  prey  of  old  maids.  Young  girls 
love  the  garden  flowers ;  beautiful  women  surround  them¬ 
selves  with  hothouse  hues  and  perfumes.  But  who  goes 
into  the  woods,  explores  the  rocky  glens,  braves  the  swamps  ? 
Always  the  ardent-hearted  old  maid,  who,  in  her  plain  garb 
and  thick  shoes,  is  searching  for  the  delicate  little  wild  blos¬ 
soms  the  world  over. — C.  F.  Woolson  :  Anne,  ch.  x. 

The  effect  of  historical  reading  is  analogous,  in  many 
respects,  to  that  produced  by  foreign  travel.  The  student, 
like  the  tourist,  is  transported  into  a  new  state  of  society. 
He  sees  new  fashions.  He  hears  new  modes  of  expression. 
His  mind  is  enlarged  by  contemplating  the  wide  diversities 
of  laws,  of  morals,  and  of  manners. 

Macaulay  :  Essay  07i  History. 

It  has  recently  been  said,  and  not  without  a  degree  of 
truth,  that  the  modern  movement  for  expansion,  which  has 
made  England  active  and  potential  at  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
did  not  originate  in  the  mind  of  a  statesman,  and  was  not 
the  result  of  the  scheming  of  a  shrewd  politician  like  Bea- 
consfield,  but  received  its  most  powerful  impulse  from  three 
writers:  Carlyle,  Tennyson,  and  Kipling.  These  men  of 
letters,  like  many  of  their  predecessors,  have  not  urged  defi¬ 
nite  policies  upon  their  countrymen  ;  but  they  have  given  the 
English  spirit  and  temper  the  impulse  of  sharp  definition 
and  of  deep  and  passionate  faith.  Indeed,  the  service  of 


174 


APPENDIX  D. 


English  literature  as  a  practical  force  in  English  life  cannot 
be  overstated.  It  has  done  more  than  any  other  single  force 
to  give  the  English  race  clear  consciousness  of  its  strength, 
its  aims,  and  its  work ;  it  has  bound  the  race  together  in  the 
consciousness  of  a  rich  and  enduring  community  of  history 
and  fortune.  Shakespeare  has  done  more  for  England  in 
forming  this  consciousness  than  Pitt,  or  Peel,  or  Gladstone. 

If  this  service  was  needed  in  a  country  of  such  narrow  ter¬ 
ritory,  with  a  population  so  compact,  as  England,  it  is  sorely 
needed  in  this  country,  with  its  immense  distances  and  its 
widely  separated  communities.  And  when  one  adds  to  these 
natural  conditions  the  complexity  of  races  now  learning  to 
live  together  in  the  republic,  the  necessity  of  a  literature  that 
shall  develop  first  a  national  consciousness,  and  then  clarify 
national  spiritual  ideals  and  make  them  authoritative,  be¬ 
comes  even  painfully  apparent.  A  literature  adequate  in  its 
power  and  vision  to  the  range  of  life  on  this  continent  is  a 
prime  necessity  for  our  safety.  We  need  a  literature  which 
shall  speak  to  and  for  the  consciousness  of  the  nation,  as  the 
New  England  literature  spoke  to  and  for  the  consciousness 
of  New  England.  The  note  of  nationality  was  struck  with 
resonant  clearness  by  Emerson,  Lowell,  and  Whittier ;  but 
the  force  and  depth  of  conscious  national  life  were  not  behind 
these  earlier  poets  as  they  will  be  behind  their  successors. 
The  time  was  not  ripe ;  but  it  is  fast  ripening. 

H.  W.  Mabie :  Foru7n,  January,  1899. 

The  quarrels  and  divisions  about  religion  were  evils  un¬ 
known  to  the  heathen.  The  reason  was,  because  the  religion 
of  the  heathen  consisted  rather  in  rites  and  ceremonies  than 
in  any  constant  belief. — Bacon  :  On  U7iity  i7i  Religio7i. 

Although  Mr.  Sidney  Cooper  has  attained  the  great  age  of 
ninety-five,  writes  a  correspondent  of  the  London  Daily  Tele¬ 
graph,  he  is  still  four  years  behind  the  old  master,  Titian, 
who  lived  till  he  was  ninety-nine.  Mr.  Cooper  is  still  hale  and 
strong,  and  on  July  23  last  attended  the  Lord  Mayor’s  ban¬ 
quet,  “  in  honor  of  Art,”  at  the  Mansion  House,  adding  to  his 
signature  in  the  visitors’  book  the  optimistic  note,  “  aged 
ninety-four  years.”  It  is  interesting  to  recall  the  fact  that  he 
and  Mr.  Watts  exhibited  in  the  Royal  Academy  of  1837 — the 
first  year  of  the  present  reign.  With  regard  to  painters’  ages, 
note  should  be  taken  that  many  of  the  old  masters  lived  to 
an  advanced  age.  For  example,  the  following  may  be  quoted  ; 
Michael  Angelo,  89;  Hals,  86;  Hobbema,  81  ;  Teniers,  80; 
Morales,  80;  Greuze,  80;  Ghirlandajo,  78;  Snyders,  78;  Tie- 


APPENDIX  D. 


175 


polo,  77  ;  Mantegna.  75  ;  Van  der  Heyden,  75  ;  Vernet,  75  ; 
Van  de  Velde,  74;  Poussin,  72 ;  Mabuse,  71  ;  De  Keyser,  71  ; 
Matsys,  70;  Wynants,  70;  Dolci,  70.  There  are,  of  course, 
many  others,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  generality  of 
artists  are  a  long-lived  race. 

There  is  an  old  saying  that  “lawyers  are  poor  Christians," 
yet  the  most  brilliant  and  original  representation  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  in  our  day  has  come  from  the  pen  of  a  jurist,  namely, 
Rudolf  Sohm,  professor  of  law  in  the  university  and  one  of 
the  compilers  of  the  new  Civil  Law  Book  of  the  German 
Empire.  His  book  on  “  Kirchenrecht  ”  is  an  exceptionally 
scholarly  investigation  of  the  character  of  original  Christian¬ 
ity,  on  a  positive  and  conservative  basis.  Kahl  and  Rieker, 
two  other  prominent  jurists,  have  also  published  works  ap¬ 
preciative  of  the  character  and  claims  of  Christianity.  As  a 
representative  in  the  department  of  political  economy,  we 
draw  attention  to  the  lately  deceased  veteran  authority.  Pro¬ 
fessor  Roscher  of  Leipsic,  among  whose  papers  was  found  a 
special  work  on  Christianity,  entitled  “  Spiritual  Thoughts  of 
a  Student  of  Political  Economy.”  This  work  shows  how 
closely  the  author  studied  the  Gospels  and  how  keenly  he 
appreciated  their  contents.  Other  names  of  men  in  this  de¬ 
partment  of  research  who  have  publicly  given  expression  to 
their  favor  of  Christianity  are  Karl  Knies,  Theodore  von 
der  Goltz,  Adolf  Wagner,  Gustav  Schmoller.  All  these  have 
in  their  writings,  in  the  most  positive  manner,  emphasized 
particularly  the  moral  motives  of  Christianity,  especially  for 
the  solution  of  the  social  problems  of  the  day.  The  younger 
school  of  specialists  in  this  science,  headed  by  Professor 
Brentano  of  Munich,  and  containing  among  its  members  such 
men  as  Walter  Lotz,  Max  Weber,  and  Gerhard  von  Schulze, 
have  really  made  it  a  part  of  their  programme  to  make  the 
Christian  Church  the  final  court  of  appeal  for  the  settlement 
of  th^  social  contests  of  the  day.  as  this  has  been  done  in  a 
more  practical  way  by  the  English  Christian-Socialists,  such 
as  Kingsley,  Maurice,  Ludlow,  and  Robertson. 

Pastor  Erich  Foerster:  Das  Christe^itum  der  Zeitg erics’- 
sen,  Zeitschrift  fur  Theologie  und  Kirche  (Berlin), 
1899,  translated  for  Literary  Digest,  Jan.  28,  1899. 

Why  should  any  but  professional  moralists  trouble  them¬ 
selves  with  the  solution  of  moral  difficulties.^  For,  as  we 
resort  to  a  physician  in  case  of  any  physical  disease,  so  in  case 
of  any  moral  doubt  or  any  moral  disorganization,  it  seems 


176 


APPENDIX  D. 


natural  that  we  should  rely  upon  the  judgment  of  some  man 
specially  skilled  in  the  treatment  of  such  subjects. 

Did  Dickens  deliberately  aim  to  improve  educational 
systems  and  reveal  the  principles  of  educational  philosophy  } 
The  answer  is  easily  found. 

He  was  the  first  great  English  student  of  Froebel.  He 
deals  with  nineteen  different  schools  in  his  books.  He  gives 
more  attention  to  the  training  of  childhood  than  any  other 
novelist  or  any  other  educator  except  Froebel.  He  was  one 
of  the  first  Englishmen  to  demand  national  control  of  educa¬ 
tion,  even  in  private  schools,  and  the  thorough  training  of 
all  teachers.  He  exposed  fourteen  types  of  coercion,  and  did 
more  than  any  one  else  to  lead  Christian  men  and  women  to 
treat  children  humanely.  Every  book  he  wrote  except  two 
is  rich  in  educational  thought.  He  took  the  most  advanced 
position  on  every  phase  of  modern  educational  thought, 
except  manual  training.  When  he  is  thoroughly  understood 
he  will  be  recognized  as  the  Froebel  of  England. — J.  L. 
Hughes,  What  Charles  Dickens  Did  for  Childhood,  Century 
Magazine,  Vol.  57,  p.  501. 

Does  any  man  doubt  that  if  Judge  Van  Wyck  is  elected 
Governor  he  will  turn  out  the  thieving  Republican  canal 
deepeners  and  smash  their  ring?  Will  he  not  have  the 
most  powerful  imaginable  motive  for  putting  as  many  as 
possible  of  them  in  the  State  prison ;  the  desire,  that  is,  of 
winning  public  confidence  and  approbation  in  a  high  degree  ? 

Gov.  Tilden’s  pursuit  of  the  Tweed  ring  thieves  made  him 
Governor.  His  pursuit  of  the  canal  ring  thieves  made  him 
the  Democratic  candidate  for  President.  Nobody  has  for¬ 
gotten  that  great  example  of  popular  trust  and  admiration 
centering  upon  a  public  officer  who  had  exhibited  great  zeal 
and  diligence  in  bringing  to  justice  the  rascals  who  had 
stolen  the  people’s  money.  But  let  no  man  forget  that  the 
rascals  Tilden  pursued  were  his  political  enemies.  T\yeed 
had  opposed  him  in  the  party,  and  at  last,  in  his  coarse  and 
brutal  way,  had  given  him  a  public  and  mortal  insult  which 
Tilden  could  neither  forget  nor  forgive.  Tweed  was  doomed 
from  that  day.  The  biggest  canal  rascals  were  Republicans. 

Every  consideration,  personal  and  political,  will  urge  on 
Gov.  Van  Wyck  to  be  swift  and  stern  in  his  dealings  with 
the  Republican  canal  thieves.  No  consideration  of  any  kind 
will  hold  him  back. 

With  Gov.  Roosevelt,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  powerful 
considerations  will  be  those  that  restrain.  Van  Wyck  will 


/tPPENDIX  D. 


177 


build  up  his  party  by  dragging  this  corruption  into  the  light. 
Roosevelt  will  destroy  his  party  if  he  touches  it.  A  Demo¬ 
cratic  Governor  might  open  the  way  to  the  Presidency  by  a 
triumphant  campaign  against  the  corruptionists.  A  Re¬ 
publican  Governor  who  attacks  George  Aldridge  and  the 
other  powerful  Republicans  who  are  responsible  for  the  canal 
scandal  must  abandon  all  higher  ambitions.  He  may  smash 
the  canal  ring,  but  he  will  go  out  of  politics  at  the  end  of  his 
term  just  as  Black  goes  out  on  Jan.  i. 

There  is  nothing  but  Roosevelt’s  native  dislike  of  unworthy 
public  servants  that  would  prompt  him  to  make  war  on  the 
canal  rascals  of  his  party.  But  how  much  of  that  dislike 
remains  ?  He  is  making  his  campaign  in  strange  companion¬ 
ship — Platt,  Aldridge,  Woodruff.  If  he  can  be  on  such  good 
terms  with  Republican  maladministration  in  the  campaign, 
what  reason  have  we  to  expect  him  after  election  to  turn 
upon  his  present  intimate  associates  with  sudden  austerity  ? 

There  is  a  deadly  certainty  of  doom  for  the  canal  rascals 
if  Van  Wyck  is  elected.  There  is  very  grave  doubt  whether 
Roosevelt’s  big  “if”  wouldn’t  blind  his  eyes  all  through  his 
term.  If  any  voter  wants  the  canal  frauds  punished  he  will 
vote  against  his  intent  if  he  votes  for  Roosevelt. 

Times,  Nov.  i,  1898. 

It  is  plain  what  Spain  wants  of  the  Philippines.  She  wants 
to  get  something  out  of  them.  That  a  bankrupt  nation  with¬ 
out  a  navy  should  keep  and  administer  a  group  of  islands  half 
the  world  away  is  out  of  the  question.  It  becomes  more 
flatly  out  of  the  question  when  her  Government  has  produced 
a  lively  revolt  in  every  one  of  them  in  which  it  has  ever  been 
carried  on  or  asserted.  If  the  Philippines  were  all  given 
back  to  Spain  to-morrow  the  Spanish  forces  in  them  would 
all  be  annihilated  before  the  year  was  out. 

But  although  Spain  cannot  hold  the  Philippines  she  can, 
she  thinks,  make  them  figure  as  an  asset  in  her  schedules.  If 
we  admit  her  ownership  she  might  claim  some  compensation 
from  us,  if  we  choose  to  take  them  over  as  a  war  indemnity. 
If  we  do  not  choose  she  can  still  peddle  them  about  Europe, 
and  she  could  doubtless  find  a  purchaser  if  she  could  show  a 
clear  title. 

This  explains  the  pretense  of  horror  in  Madrid  over  our 
claim  to  the  Philippines ;  it  explains  the  tenacity  of  the 
Spanish  Commissioners  in  Paris.  It  is  not  a  question  of  our 
allowing  Spain  to  hold  them.  She  simply  cannot  hold  them. 
It  is  a  question  of  our  allowing  her  to  sell  them.  And  that 


178 


APPENDIX  D. 


we  cannot  allow,  in  default  of  a  purchaser  satisfactory  to  our¬ 
selves. 

One  case,  years  ago,  that  helped  me  immensely  in  the 
business  was  a  forgery.  The  man  had  disappeared  and  left 
no  clew  whatever  behind. 

I  obtained  access  to  his  room  and  found  that  he  had  de¬ 
veloped  a  partiality  for  cutting  scraps  from  newspapers. 
There  was  a  whole  drawerful  of  these,  and  I  went  through 
them  carefully. 

Several  had  relation  to  forgery  cases,  and  one  cutting  that 
appeared  to  be  pretty  badly  fingered  described  how  a  forger 
had  got  away  in  woman’s  attire. 

I  worked  on  the  theory  that  my  bird  had  flown  in  this 
manner  and  followed  it  up  until  I  finally  got  on  the  track  and 
captured  the  criminal. 

The  capture  was  regarded  as  a  very  remarkable  one,  but, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  runaway  had  left  for  me  an  exceed¬ 
ingly  valuable  clew.  If  he  had  taken  the  precaution  to  burn 
that  cutting  he  might  have  escaped  capture  altogether.” 

It  is  certain  that  the  city  has  received  about  $140,000  m  a 
year  for  the  privilege  of  gleaning  from  the  scows,  in  a  very 
unclean  condition,  certain  things  that  were  dumped  upon 
them  by  the  Department  carts.  It  is  equally  certain  that  the 
collection  of  these  things  and  others,  in  a  clean  condition,  di¬ 
rectly  from  the  houses  and  shops,  will  yield  a  much  larger 
return. — Geo.  E.  Waring :  Tkg  Cleanmg  of  a  Great  City, 
McClure's  Magazine,  Sept.,  1897. 

It  is  worthy  the  observing,  that  there  is  no  passion  in  the 
mind  of  man  so  weak  but  it  mates  and  masters  the  fear  of 
death  ;  and  therefore  death  is  no  such  terrible  enemy  when  a 
man  hath  so  many  attendants  about  him  that  can  win  the 
combat  of  him.  Revenge  triumphs  over  death  ;  love  slights 
it ;  honour  aspireth  to  it ;  grief  flieth  to  it ;  fear  pre- 
'occupateth  it ;  nay,  we  read,  after  Otho  the  Emperor  had 
slain  himself,  pity  provoked  many  to  die  out  of  mere  com¬ 
passion  to  their  sovereign  ;  nay,  Seneca  adds  niceness  and 
satiety  ...  A  man  would  die,  though  he  were  neither 
valiant  nor  miserable,  only  upon  a  weariness  to  do  the  same 
thing  so  oft  over  and  over.” — Bacon  :  Of  Death. 

Whatever  arguments  apply  to  public-school  education  for 
boys  must  reach  girls  also.  In  the  first  place,  girls  need, 
even  more  than  boys,  to  learn  at  school  the  qualities  and 
merits  of  those  in  a  different  social  circle,  because  if  they  do 


APPENDIX  D. 


179 


not  learn  it  then  they  may  never  learn  it.  Men  learn  it  all 
through  their  lives,  because  almost  every  department  of  busi¬ 
ness  brings  into  contact  and  comparison  those  trained  in  very 
different  spheres.  Women  not  engaged  in  business  have 
much  less  opportunity  for  this  contact ;  their  homes  include 
but  two  grades — employers  and  employed  ;  and  outside  of 
their  homes  it  is  only  some  rare  occasion  of  church  work 
or  charitable  work  which  brings  women  into  that  easy  inter¬ 
course,  so  familiar  to  men,  with  those  out  of  their  own  set. 
If  Ethel  does  not  learn  at  school  that  the  daughter  of  the 
coal-heaver  or  the  washerwoman  may  be  as  good  a  scholar 
and  even  have  as  good  manners  as  herself,  she  may  never 
have  another  opportunity ;  whereas  her  brother  may  make 
the  same  discovery  in  college  or  in  business.  So  far,  then, 
the  need  of  this  free  early  intercourse  would  seem  even 
greater  in  the  case  of  the  girl. 

T.  W.  Higginson  :  Concerning  All  of  Us.  The  Contagion 
of  Manners. 

M.  Brunetiere  affirms  anew,  with  energy,  that  science  has 
not  kept  its  promises.  “  In  the  plenitude  of  its  power  [he 
saysj,  science  promised  that  it  would  answer  these  redoubt¬ 
able  questions:  Whence  do  we  come?  Why  do  we  live? 
Whither  are  we  going  ?  ”  and  he  reproaches  science  for  not 
having  fulfilled  its  engagements. 

Now  the  authority  of  M.  Brunetiere  is  great  enough,  even 
in  matters  of  science,  to  make  this  dogmatic  and  almost 
solemn  affirmation,  coming  from  him,  pass  without  contest 
and  without  protest.  This  is  a  great  pity,  for  the  so-called 
“  promises  ”  of  science  are  of  the  domain  of  pure  fancy.  They 
have  reality  only  in  the  imagination  of  M.  Brunetiere. 

To  begin  with,  “  science  has  promised,”  he  says.  But  what 
science  ?  Who  is  this  person  ?  “  I  know  not  the  lady,”  said 

De  Maistre,  speaking  of  “  nature.”  I  know  no  more  of 
“science.”  Who  has  the  right  to  speak  in  her  name  and 
make  us  absurd  promises  ?  If  a  scientist  makes  a  mistake  or 
commits  himself  to  some  hazardous  statement,  “  science  ” 
is  not  responsible.  The  temerities  of  a  savant,  or  of  ten 
sava7its,  or  even  of  a  thousand,  can  not  compromise  her.  ,  .  . 
Science  .  .  .  survives  scientists,  as  good  sense  and  esthetics 
survive  the  historians  of  literature. 

Nevertheless,  if  we  will,  we  may  strictly  consider  as  the 
“voice  of  science”  the  unanimous,  or  almost  unanimous, 
accord  of  scientists  on  this  or  that  point.  There  exists  a  sort 
of  official  science,  that  manifests  itself  by  the  classic  and 


i8o 


APPENDIX  D. 


uniform  statement  of  certain  facts.  For  example,  all  books 
on  chemistry,  English,  French,  Portuguese  or  Roumanian, 
agree  that  water  is  composed  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  and 
on  the  methods  of  their  preparation.  This  uniformity  in  de¬ 
scription  and  exposition  indicates  that  science  is  fixed  on  this 
point  (in  1899,  at  least).  Likewise,  for  the  laws  of  luminous 
vibrations,  in  physics,  or  the  phenomena  of  the  circulation, 
in  physiology,  or  the  phases  of  the  moon,  in  astronomy,  or 
the  solution  of  equations  of  the  second  degree  in  algebra. 
The  standard  treatises,  elementary  or  higher,  give  quite 
exactly  a  picture  of  the  present  state  of  science. 

In  what  standard  works  has  science  made  the  astonishing 
promises  that  M.  Brunetiere  mentions  with  bitterness.?  .  .  . 

We  may  even  be  permitted  to  be  still  more  curious,  and  to 
ask  in  what  scientific  work,  standard  or  not,  M.  Brunetiere 
has  run  across  his  promises  regarding  the  solution  of  enig¬ 
mas  ?  I  do  not  believe  that  they  are  in  the  chemistry  books. 
.  .  .  Are  they  in  the  works  on  physics  ?  Not  at  all.  .  .  . 
Even  the  treatises  on  physiology  do  not  discuss  the  problems 
so  dear  to  M.  Brunetiere;  they  are  occupied  with  quite 
different  subjects,  and  the  field  for  precise  investigation  that 
is  offered  to  them  is  so  vast  that  they  have  no  need  to  get 
lost  in  metaphysical  nebulosities.  In  treatises  on  zoology  are 
found  studies  of  higher  and  lower  organisms  and  of  the  classi¬ 
fication  of  lower  animals.  Botany  occupies  itself  with  plants  ; 
geology  with  fossils,  terrestrial  strata,  and  rocks.  The  des¬ 
tiny  of  man  gives  no  concern  to  either  botanists  or  zoologists, 
and  it  is  not  discussed  in  the  works  of  the  astronomers,  the 
mathematicians,  or  the  engineers. 

It  is  true  that  certain  anthropologists  have  put  forth  hy¬ 
potheses  about  the  origin  of  man — hypotheses  suggested  to 
them  by  the  zoologists.  These  hypotheses  are  very  probable, 
so  probable  that  they  are  even  taught  by  Catholics.  The 
Darwinian  theory  of  the  evolution  of  species  is  no  longer  an 
object  of  horror  as  it  was  twenty-five  years  ago.  .  .  . 

But  these  are  not  promises.  Although  it  is  pretty  nearly 
proven  that  living  organisms  have  risen  by  evolution  until  the 
human  species  has  been  attained,  this  does  not  solve  the 
terrible  question,  “Whence  come  we  ?  ”  for  to  declare  that 
man  comes  from  the  rudimentary  organisms  of  the  first  geo¬ 
logic  epochs  is  only  to  remove  the  difficulty  a  little.  .  .  . 
Whence  come  those  living  germs  themselves,  from  which  man 
has  sprung  by  progressive  evolution  ?  And  why  ?  Assur¬ 
edly  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  know  ;  we  must  resign  ourselves 
to  ignorance.  Never  has  there  been  a  scientist  worthy  of  the 


APPENDIX  D. 


i8i 


name  who  has  dared  to  promise  us  a  certain  solution  to  in¬ 
terrogations  that  must  unceasingly  be  repeated. 

Why,  then,  reproach  science  with  not  giving  a  solution, 
when  she  has  never  pretended  to  do  so?  .  .  .  M.  Brunetiere’s 
indignation  is  like  that  of  a  man  who  should  reproach  Leo¬ 
nardo  da  Vinci  with  having  painted  “  La  Gioconda,”  and 
Mozart  with  having  composed  “  Don  Juan,”  because  neither 
“  La  Gioconda”  nor  “  Don  Juan  ”  increases  the  speed  of  the 
express-trains  from  Paris  to  Havre. 

Really,  the  reasoning  of  M.  Brunetiere  has  exactly  this 
effect.  “  Incandescent  lamps,”  he  says,  “  cast  no  more  light 
[on  this  question]  than  the  candles  of  our  sires  ;  and  sero¬ 
therapy,  which  does  not  prevent  our  dying,  gives  us  also  no 
information  about  why  we  die.” 

So  incandescent  lamps  and  serotherapy  are  condemned,  be¬ 
cause  neither  of  them  has  solved  the  problem  of  the  origin, 
the  object,  and  the  end  of  life. 

But  they  have  never  put  forth  this  absurd  pretense, 
M.  Brunetiere.  Incandescent  lights  give  us  better  illumina¬ 
tion  than  candles ;  that  is  quite  sufficient.  As  to  sero¬ 
therapy,  do  you  really  think  that  it  is  criminal  because  it  does 
not  give  us  the  fountain  of  youth  ?  It  is  saving  the  lives  of 
a  hundred  thousand  children  every  year ;  that  is  all ! 

A  hundred  thousand  children  !  A  negligible  quantity, 
perhaps,  for  a  haughty  critic,  and  a  slight  result,  if  we  com¬ 
pare  it  with  what  might  be  done  with  a  magic  liquid  that 
would  give  us  eternal  youth. 

Nevertheless,  the  lives  of  a  hundred  thousand  children 
have  a  certain  value ;  and  M.  Brunetiere  was  not  very 
happily  inspired  when  he  reproached  us  with  serotherapy. 

•  •  • 

Science  has  already  done  admirable  work.  Can  she  go 
further  ?  Doubtless.  Every  day  brings  some  new  conquest, 
without  solving  the  final  enigma  of  human  destiny,  which 
probably  will  never  be  solved. 

Is  M.  Brunetiere,  with  or  without  his  friends,  going  to  give 
us  this  desired  solution,  a  solution  that  will  not  be  ridiculous  ? 

It  is  scarcely  probable,  disrespectful  though  it  may  be  to 
refuse  him  this  hope. 

In  any  case  he  will  not  discourage  us.  The  work  of  scien¬ 
tists  and  of  science,  in  spite  of  the  critics,  will  continue  as  in 
the  past.  A  black  shadow  envelops  us ;  mystery  is  round 
about  us.  This  immense  complexity  of  laws  and  of  phenomena 
that  enwraps  us  can  not  be  untangled  even  partially,  except 
by  patient,  long,  and  troublesome  research.  This  is  the  task 


i82 


/APPENDIX  D. 


of  science.  She  has  no  other  hope.  She  can  make  no  other 
promise  than  that  she  will  diminish  a  little  the  thickness  of 
this  frightful  obscurity. 

Is  there  any  other  way  to  dissipate  these  shadows  except 
by  the  methods  of  scientific  investigation  ?  We  know  of 
none,  and  we  wait  for  M.  Brunetiere  or  some  one  else 
to  make  one  known  to  us. 

And  at  the  same  time  he  will  perhaps  give  us  exact  infor¬ 
mation  about  these  famous  promises  of  science,  which  have 
so  roused  his  vehement  indignation. 

Charles  Richet :  Revue  Scientifique,  14,  1899,  trans¬ 
lated  for  the  Literary  Digest,  XVIII.,  195. 

The  internal  evidence  that  Burns  in  his  celebrated  song 
meant  the  rye-field,  and  not  the  River  Rye,  appears  satisfac¬ 
tory. 

1.  He  sang  about  many  rivers  and  burns  of  his  neighbor¬ 
hood,  but  he  never  left  any  doubt  that  he  meant  a  stream. 

“  A  down  winding  Nith  1  did  wander.” 

“  Behind  yon  hills  where  Stinchar  flows.” 

“  Amang  the  bonnie  winding  banks,  where  Doon  rins  wimpling 
clear.” 

2.  He  sang  quite  as  many  times  about  the  fields  and  grain 
and  never  left  any  room  for  doubt  on  that  score, 

“  Corn  rigs  are  bonnie.” 

“  Wi’  sma’  persuasion  she  agreed 
To  see  me  thro’  the  barley.” 

“  The  rustling  corn,  the  fruited  thorn.” 

“  The  waving  grain,  wide  o’er  the  plain.” 

“  While  the  bloom  is  on  the  rye.” 

3.  Among  country  people  it  is  the  rule  to  rise  early,  while 
the  dew  is  still  on  the  grass.  Work  is  begun  generally  before 
it  has  dried  off.  The  flocks  are  afield,  and  must  be  brought 
home,  the  horses  fed,  the  cows  milked,  etc.  So  it  not  only  is 
not  uncommon,  but  is  usual  for  the  lads  and  lasses  to  go 
out  into  the  fields,  getting  their  feet  wet  and  “  petticoats 
draigl’t  ”  in  the  dew.  What  more  natural  than  that  the  in¬ 
cident  described  should  have  happened  ?  It  undoubtedly 
did  happen  to  Burns,  probably  many  times,  and  whether  so 
or  not,  it  has  happened  (and  will  again)  to  many  another. 
What  more  natural  than  that  Burns  should  commemorate  it 
with  a  song,  especially  as  it  was  in  his  line,  both  of  thought 
and  poetry  ? 

Compare  the  sentiment  of  the  described  meeting  happen- 


APPENDIX  D,  1 83 

ing  in  a  rye-field  and  in  the  crossing  of  a  river,  and  the  great 
probability  in  favor  of  the  former  will  be  apparent. 

The  blind  beggar  into  whose  hat  the  smallest  French  coin 
was  thrown  by  a  bystander  exclaimed  ;  “  That  must  have 
been  an  Orleans  prince  !  ” 

Yotcths  Companion,  Oct.  20,  1898. 

This  is  proved  by  many  physiological  experiments  which 
cannot  here  be  detailed  ;  but  outside  of  the  laboratory  we 
constantly  apply  the  law  of  summation  in  our  practical  ap¬ 
peals.  If  a  car-horse  balks,  the  final  way  of  starting  him  is  by 
applying  a  number  of  customary  incitements  at  once.  If  the 
driver  uses  reins  and  voice,  if  one  bystander  pulls  at  his 
head,  another  lashes  his  hind-quarters,  the  conductor  rings 
the  bell,  and  the  dismounted  passengers  shove  the  car,  all  at 
the  same  moment,  his  obstinacy  generally  yields,  and  he  goes 
on  his  way  rejoicing.  If  we  are  striving  to  remember  a  lost 
name  or  fact,  we  think  of  as  many  “  cues  ”  as  possible,  so  that 
by  their  joint  action  they  may  recall  what  no  one  of  them 
can  recall  alone.  The  sight  of  a  dead  prey  will  often  not 
stimulate  a  beast  to  pursuit,  but  if  the  sight  of  movement  be 
added  to  that  of  form,  pursuit  occurs.  “  Briicke  noted  that 
his  brainless  hen,  which  made  no  attempt  to  peck  at  the 
grain  under  her  very  eyes,  began  pecking  if  the  grain  were 
thrown  on  the  ground  v/ith  force,  so  as  to  produce  a  rattling 
sound.”  “  Dr.  Allen  Thomson  hatched  out  some  chickens 
on  a  carpet,  where  he  kept  them  for  several  days.  They 
showed  no  inclination  to  scrape,  .  .  .  but  when  Dr.  Thomson 
sprinkled  a  little  gravel  on  the  carpet,  .  .  .  the  chickens  im¬ 
mediately  began  their  scraping  movements.”  A  strange  per¬ 
son,  and  darkness,  are  both  of  them  stimuli  to  fear  and  mis¬ 
trust  in  dogs  (and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  in  men).  Neither 
circumstance  alone  may  awaken  outward  manifestations,  but 
together,  i.  e.  when  the  strange  man  is  met  in  the  dark,  the 
dog  will  be  excited  to  violent  defiance.  Street-hawkers  well 
know  the  efficacy  of  summation,  for  they  arrange  themselves 
in  a  line  on  the  sidewalk,  and  the  passer  often  buys  from  the 
last  one  of  them,  through  the  effect  of  the  reiterated  solicita¬ 
tion,  what  he  refused  to  buy  from  the  first  in  the  row. 

James:  Psychology,  pp.  1 29-1 30. 

The  Princess  of  Wales,  during  the  London  season,  is  one 
of  the  hardest  worked  women  in  England.  She.  rarely  gets 
to  bed  before  2  a.  m.  After  her  return  about  midnight  from 
the  entertainments  at  which  her  presence  is  a  necessity,  she 


184 


APPENDIX  D. 


takes  the  hours  from  12  to  2  to  write  private  letters,  because 
she  has  so  little  time  during  the  day.  When  her  children 
were  young  she  made  it  a  rule  to  breakfast  at  8.30  a.  m.,  so  as 
to  go  into  the  schoolroom  at  9  o’clock  to  inspect  the  “  copies  ” 
written  on  the  previous  day. 

Queen  Victoria,  though  aged  and  infirm,  never  goes  to  bed 
before  12,  and  is  awakened  soon  after  7  A.  M.  During  the  day 
she  is  so  fully  occupied  that  she  has  no  time  to  lie  down  and 
rest,  as  most  well-to-do  women  have  at  her  age. 

The  Emperor  of  Germany  rises  at  5  in  summer,  at  6  in 
winter,  and,  as  he  expects  the  Empress  to  prepare  his  coffee 
herself,  she  has  to  get  up  equally  early. 

The  late  Empress  of  Austria  was  perhaps  the  earliest  riser 
of  all  the  royal  personages  of  Europe.  She  allowed  herself 
only  the  short  sleep  to  be  snatched  between  1 1  P.  M.  and  3 
A.  M.  After  that  she  was  up  and  insisted  on  her  suit  being 
up  also. 

We  might  best  make  a  comparison.  The  poet  is  like  a 
bee.  His  product  is  a  honey,  which  is  neither  wholly  his  own 
nor  wholly  nature’s.  No  pure  nectar  of  flowers  may  be  found 
in  the  bee’s  comb ;  the  amber  richness  garnered  there  is  a 
distillation  of  composite  nature,  a  brew  of  flower-life  and 
bee-life  indescribably  characteristic  of  both  flower  and  bee. 
This  is  the  formula  for  genuine  originality — the  personal 
quality  of  genius  inseparably  blent  with  the  finest  and  rarest 
extracts  of  nature.  A  clear  distinction  may  be  easily  made 
between  what  is  written  merely  about  nature  and  what  is 
distilled  from  nature  in  the  alembic  of  genius.  The  former 
may  be  attractive  reading,  the  latter  has  for  its  distinction 
the  haunting  and  tantalizing  flavor  of  undiscoverable,  imma¬ 
nent  freshness. 

Maurice  Thompson  :  Independefit,  Feb.  2,  1899. 

I  want  to  read  you  some  new  passages  from  an  inter¬ 
leaved  copy  of  my  book.  You  haven’t  read  the  printed  part 
yet.  I  gave  you  a  copy  of  it,  but  nobody  reads  a  book  that 
is  given  to  him.  Of  course  not. 

O.  W.  Holmes  :  Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  p.  301. 

Having,  then,  resolved  that  you  will  not  waste  recklessly, 
but  earnestly  use,  these  early  days  of  yours,  remember  that 
all  the  duties  of  her  children  to  England  may  be  summed  in 
two  words — industry  and  honor.  I  say  first,  industry,  for 
it  is  in  this  that  soldier  youth  are  especially  tempted  to  fail. 
Yet,  surely,  there  is  no  reason,  because  your  life  may  possibly 


APPENDIX  D. 


185 

or  probably  be  shorter  than  other  men’s,  that  you  should 
therefore  waste  more  recklessly  the  portion  of  it  that  is 
granted  you  ;  neither  do  the  duties  of  your  profession,  which 
require  you  to  keep  your  bodies  strong,  in  any  wise  involve 
the  keeping  of  your  minds  weak.  So  far  from  that,  the  ex¬ 
perience,  the  hardship,  and  the  activity  of  a  soldier’s  life 
render  his  powers  of  thought  more  accurate  than  those  of 
other  men  ;  and  while,  for  others,  all  knowledge  is  often  little 
more  than  a  means  of  amusement,  there  is  no  form  of  science 
which  a  soldier  may  not  at  some  time  or  other  find  bearing 
on  business  of  life  and  death.  A  young  mathematician  may 
be  excused  for  languor  in  studying  curves  to  be  described 
only  with  a  pencil ;  but  not  in  tracing  those  which  are  to  be 
described  with  a  rocket.  Your  knowledge  of  a  wholesome 
herb  may  involve  the  feeding  of  an  army,  and  acquaintance 
with  an  obscure  point  of  geography,  the  success  of  a  cam¬ 
paign.  Never  waste  an  instant’s  time,  therefore ;  the  sin  of 
idleness  is  a  thousand-fold  greater  in  you  than  in  other 
youths,  for  the  fates  of  those  who  will  one  day  be  under  your 
command  hang  upon  your  knowledge.  Lost  moments  now 
will  be  lost  lives  then,  and  every  instant  which  you  carelessly 
take  for  play  you  buy  with  blood. 

John  Ruskin  :  Crow7i  of  Wild  Olive  ;  War. 

There  was  some  serious  cause  which  induced  nearly  150,000 
Republicans  to  vote  for  the  Hon.  Seth  Low  for  mayor  of 
New  York  in  1897.  There  is  no  disguising  the  fact  that  the 
cause  was  a  determination  on  the  part  of  those  who  so  voted 
to  protest  against  the  domination  by  Senator  Platt  of  the 
Republican  party  of  this  State. 

There  has  not  been  any  change  for  the  better  in  Mr.  Platt’s 
policy,  but  there  has  been  added  to  the  causes  which  led  the 
majority  of  the  Republicans  of  this  city  to  vote  for  the  Hon. 
Seth  Low,  Algerism,  Aldridgeism,  the  Force  bill,  the  press- 
gag  law,  the  frauds  in  the  City  Works  Department  in  Brook¬ 
lyn,  and  other  minor  causes  to  lead  the  same  electors  to  vote 
against  Senator  Platt’s  domination  this  fall.  If  to  the  vote 
cast  for  Mayor  Van  Wyck  in  1897  we  add  148,000  votes  cast 
for  the  Hon.  Seth  Low,  we  shall  have  probably  a  fair  esti¬ 
mate  of  the  number  of  votes  which  will  be  cast  in  Greater 
New  York  for  the  Hon.  Augustus  Van  Wyck  for  Governor  of 
this  State. 

In  the  names  of  wars  the  defeated  nation  comes  first,  as 
the  Franco-Prussian,  the  Austro-Italian,  and,  more  recently, 


i86 


APPENDIX  D. 


the  China-Japanese  and  the  Graeco-Turkish  wars.  Hence 
the  conflict  through  which  we  have  just  passed  will  be  known 
as  the  Spanish-American  war,  rather  than  the  American- 
Spanish. 

It  may  seem  heartless  to  see  in  the  loss  of  the  steamer 
Portland  a  cause  of  any  emotion  except  profound  sorrow,  yet, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  disaster  was  one  so  far  from  accidental, 
one  in  which  the  fixing  of  direct  responsibility  is  so  easy,  that 
he  who  views  only  the  tragical  features  of  the  wreck,  and  ig¬ 
nores  the  display  either  of  criminal  ignorance  or  of  criminal 
recklessness  that  preceded  and  caused  the  death  of  more  than 
a  hundred  persons,  shows  sentimentality,  not  sentiment,  and 
proves  that  he  is  not  a  reasoning  being.  In  leaving  Boston 
Saturday  evening,  the  captain  of  the  Portland  took  chances 
which  no  man  in  his  position  had  a  right  to  take.  From  a 
source  that  warranted  implicit  belief,  he,  like  every  other 
captain  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  had  received  warning  that  a 
storm  of  exceptional  severity  would  strike  him  as  soon  as  he 
reached  open  water,  and  he  knew  that  his  steamer,  though 
well  built  and  comparatively  new,  was  of  a  type  much  better 
designed  for  entering  shallow  harbors  than  for  encountering 
winter  gales  on  as  dangerous  a  coast  as  there  is  in  the  world. 
Despite  all  this,  and,  according  to  his  employers,  in  defiance 
of  explicit  orders,  he  steamed  out  into  the  gathering  tempest. 
Why  ?  He  is  not  alive  to  explain  or  excuse  his  act,  or  to 
meet  the  reproaches  of  those  whose  friends  and  relatives  he 
involved  in  his  own  destruction.  One  can  only  guess  at  his 
motives.  Perhaps  he  desired  to  justify  his  recent  advance¬ 
ment  from  pilot  to  commander  by  showing  that  he  could 
carry  the  Portland  through  any  storm.  Perhaps  he  belonged 
to  the  class,  once  large,  but  now  small  and  rapidly  disappear¬ 
ing,  the  members  of  which  sneer  at  the  Government  Weather 
Bureau,  and  prefer  to  rely  on  old  “  signs  ”  instead  of  on  new 
science  as  the  basis  of  meteorological  prophecy.  Perhaps — 
a  score  of  things.  Only  this  is  certain  :  He  should  not  have 
sailed,  and  he  should  not  have  been  allowed  to  sail.  The  re¬ 
sponsibility  is  not  his  alone.  Captains  do  not  disobey  when 
owners  give  absolute  orders.  Advice  and  orders  are  differ¬ 
ent.  N.  V.  Times,  Dec.  i,  1898. 

I  have  also  found  that  the  visits  of  bees  are  necessary  for 
the  fertilization  of  some  kinds  of  clover.  For  instance,  twenty 
heads  of  Dutch  clover  .  .  .  yielded  2290  seeds,  but  twenty 
other  heads  protected  from  bees  produced  not  one.  Again, 


/tPPENDIX  D, 


187 


100  heads  of  red  clover  .  .  .  produced  2700  seeds,  but  the^ 
same  number  of  protected  heads  produced  not  a  single  seed. 

Darwin  :  Origin  of  Species,  ch.  iii. 

Among  the  conversions  brought  about  by  the  evidence  of 
facts,  we  may  note  that  of  a  great  Austrian  agriculturist,  M. 
Benesch,  who  for  thirty  years  refused  to  put  faith  in  the  spon¬ 
taneity  of  such  combustion.  Nevertheless,  several  years  ago 
he  was  forced  to  admit  it  by  an  accident  that  occurred  at  his 
farm  at  Meierhof.  In  an  inaccessible  barn  on  a  very  high 
scaffold  he  placed,  one  after  the  other,  five  hundred  loads  of 
hay,  cereals,  and  legumes  cut  green.  About  the  middle  of  the 
pile  a  mass  of  mixed  oats  and  vetches  began  to  grow  hot. 
The  employees  of  the  farm,  as  well  as  its  owner,  did  not  ap¬ 
preciate  the  danger,  and  waited  for  time  to  cool  this  incom¬ 
prehensible  ardor.  They  fared  badly,  however,  for  several 
days  of  waiting  served  only  to  encourage  and  make  more 
active  the  work  of  the  microscopic  heaters.  At  the  end  of  a 
week  a  light  curl  of  smoke  arose  from  the  barn,  and  caused 
disquiet  in  the  farm  of  Meierhof.  M.  Benesch,  after  his  un¬ 
fruitful  appeal  to  time,  had  recourse  to  air,  whose  contact,  he 
thought,  would  cool  off  the  pile  and  disperse  to  the  winds 
the  vaporous  products  of  this  mysterious  effervescence.  But 
scarcely  had  his  laborers  reached,  with  great  toil,  the  centre 
of  the  pile,  when  flames  burst  out  on  all  sides,  transforming 
the  heated  forage  into  an  immense  furnace.  The  laborers, 
indeed,  did  not  get  out  alive  without  great  effort.  Every  pre¬ 
sumption  of  incendiarism  or  the  contact  of  a  burning  body 
being  impossible  to  maintain,  this  fire  put  an  end  to  the  pre¬ 
vious  skepticism  of  the  proprietor  of  Meierhof  in  regard  to 
the  spontaneous  combustion  of  hay. 

Jean  de  Loverdo  :  La  Nature,  Dec.  24,  1898. 

“  My  fri'nds.  Brother  Paul  tells  us  that  the  waages  o’  sin  is 
death.  Now,  let’s  see  wuther  we  kin  grasp  wot  he  maan 
by’t.  S’pose  I  wor  tu  go  an’  du  my  haarwest  for  Mr.  H.  (a 
local  farmer),  an’  arter  all  the  wuk  wor  dun  go  an’  ax  Mr.  T. 
(another  farmer  in  the  same  village)  fur  my  waages,  wot  du 
yeou  think  Mr.  T.  would  saay  ?  Sure-ly  he  would  up  an’ 
saay,  ‘Sam,  yeou  air  a  fule.  Go  an’  ax  Mr.  H.  fur  yer 
waages  ;  yeou  ha’  dun  yer  haarwest  there.  Wot  du  yeou 
come  an’  ax  me  fur  yer  waages  fur?’  An’  ef  I  wuk  all  my 
loife  fur  the  daavil  an’  go  tu  God  for  my  reward  he  wool  saay, 
‘No,  no,  Sam;  yeou  go  tu  the  daavil  fur  yer  reward;  yeou 
hev  wuked  fur  him  in  the  haarwest  o’  loife;  he  must  pay  yeou.’  ” 


i88 


APPENDIX  D, 


Harper's  Weekly  promulgates  certain  theories  of  Col. 
Roosevelt’s  nomination  which  do  not  seem  to  us  to  be  con¬ 
sistent  with  each  other  or  with  the  facts.  Of  Mr.  Platt’s 
part  in  the  matter  it  has  this  to  say : 

“At  first,  we  have  no  doubt,  Mr.  Platt  was  determined  that 
Mr.  Roosevelt  should  not  be  the  head  of  the  Republican 
ticket  this  year.  Events,  however,  were  too  strong  for  the 
master-boss,  and  finally  he  accepted  the  inevitable,  because 
if  he  had  not  he  would  have  been  obliged  to  accept  Gov. 
Black.” 

But  the  theory  of  the  popular  selection  of  Col.  Roosevelt 
is  weak,  and  we  believe  it  to  be  unfounded.  The  fact  that 
Roosevelt,  if  eligible,  was  the  strongest  candidate  the  Repub¬ 
licans  could  name  this  year  became  evident  to  the  common 
mind  about  the  Fourth  of  J  uly.  There  is  in  the  service  of  the 
Republican  Party  in  the  State  one  uncommon  mind  that  does 
not  wait  for  the  revelation  of  events.  It  pierces  the  future 
with  its  own  private  beams  of  prescience  and  usually  sees  in 
March  what  the  rank  and  file  of  the  party  and  the  good  men 
of  the  Union  League  Club  began  to  get  inklings  of  along 
in  August.  That  mind  belongs  to  Thomas  C.  Platt.  So  far 
from  being  “  at  first  ”  opposed  to  the  nomination  of  Roose¬ 
velt,  we  venture  to  say  that  Mr.  Platt  picked  him  out  and 
intended  to  nominate  him  long  before  his  name  had  occurred 
to  any  Republican  of  prominence  or  any  considerable  number 
of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  party.  A  political  stroke  of  such 
magnitude  and  of  such  wisdom  did  not  have  to  be  forced 
upon  a  party  leader  so  capable  as  Mr.  Platt. 

Anybody  who  attempts  to  trace  the  Roosevelt  boom  to  its 
origin  will  find  that  it  first  came  to  the  public  notice  in  the 
reports  brought  by  the  Platt  machine  leaders  from  up  the 
State.  These  gentlemen  with  a  surprising  unanimity  de¬ 
clared  that  the  people  in  their  districts  demanded  the  nomi¬ 
nation  of  Roosevelt  and  would  take  nobody  else.  There  were 
days  when  a  listener  to  the  conversation  of  the  Republican 
leaders  in  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  would  have  concluded  that 
the  whole  State  beyond  the  Harlem  and  the  Bronx  was  on 
fire  for  the  Colonel  of  the  Rough  Riders.  Such  unanimity 
and  such  enthusiasm  about  the  choice  of  the  people  on  the 
part  of  politicians  who  have  been  accustomed  to  consult  the 
choice  of  the  boss  rather  than  that  of  the  people  excited 
remark. 

I  suppose  no  one  will  question  that  the  leading  Eastern 
colleges  for  women  are,  in  order  of  age,  approximately, 


/tPPENDIX  D. 


189 


Vassar,  Wellesley,  Smith,  Bryn  Mawr,  Radcliffe,  and  Barnard. 
If  Miss  Willard’s  friend  will  consult  the  catalogues  of  these 
colleges,  he  will  find,  I  think,  that  many  of  his  suggestions 
as  to  ideal  courses  have  already  been  anticipated  ;  that 
the  colleges  themselves,  in  fact,  are  leading  the  way  to  a 
truer  standard  of  education.  Many  of  these  courses,  how¬ 
ever,  indicate  changes  in  curriculum  made  within  a  few 
years.  If  the  sister  and  the  cousins  and  the  friends  were 
graduated  even  four  or  five  years  ago,  they  perhaps  had  no 
opportunity  to  elect  them.  But  the  point  remains  that  the 
colleges  have  recognized  the  worth  of  special  courses  in 
psychology,  pedagogy,  hygiene,  physical  chemistry,  chemistry 
of  foods,  physiology,  social  science,  social  ethics,  organized 
charities,  daily  themes,  aesthetics,  history  of  art,  and  kindred 
subjects.  These  courses,  moreover,  are  offered,  as  our  kind 
critic  suggests  would  be  appropriate,  “  as  electives  of  equal 
value  with  literature  and  mathematics,  and  not  as  added 
burdens  to  overworked  students.”  I  may  add  that  almost 
all  of  these  electives  attract  large  numbers  of  students.  At 
least  one  college  offers  a  course,  under  the  department  of 
philosophy,  in  the  study  of  child-nature  ;  and  the  same  col¬ 
lege  has  a  course  devoted  to  a  study  of  the  organized  chari¬ 
ties  of  the  city  in  which  it  is  situated.  That  the  head  of 
the  department  of  history  in  another  college  has  published 
the  most  important  work  of  the  present  day  on  “  Domestic 
Service,”  goes  to  show  that  such  subjects  are  at  least  not 
despised  in  the  colleges  for  women.  I  do  not  present  these 
instances  as  evidence  that  all  the  work  done  in  women’s  col¬ 
leges  is  differentiated  to  meet  the  special  needs  of  women, 
but  only  as  evidence,  so  far  as  it  goes,  that  there  is  a  marked 
tendency  in  that  direction.  I  question,  indeed,  whether  the 
colleges  are  not  moving  as  rapidly  in  this  matter  as  the 
public  can  follow — the  limit  of  any  reform,  history  tells  us. 

To  the  second  charge,  “  Imitation  of  man,”  we  must  again, 
I  fear,  plead  guilty.  The  university  professor  who  is  quoted  as 
saying  that  “  the  women  will  not  have  any  improvement ;  they 
wish  just  the  same  education  as  the  college  men,  not  a  better 
one,”  undoubtedly  voiced  the  ideal  of  the  average  college 
girl,  at  least  before  she  enters  college.  But,  fortunately  for 
her  and  for  her  womanhood,  she  does  not,  in  most  colleges, 
control  either  the  curriculum  or  the  environment  of  four  of 
the  most  impressionable  years  of  life  ;  and  this  environment, 
in  spite  of  the  charge  brought  against  it  of  “  Lack  of  refining 
influences  and  tendencies,”  is  often  the  most  culturing 
influence  of  her  life.  In  most  of  the  leading  colleges  for 


yfPPENDIX  D. 


190 

women,  art  and  music  are  recognized  as  educational  forces, 
and  more  or  less  provision  is  made  for  them.  In  one  well- 
known  instance  the  school  of  music  connected  with  the  col¬ 
lege  is  so  managed  that  its  concerts,  analysis  classes,  and 
rehearsals  form  a  natural  part  of  the  college  life.  The  same 
college  has  a  fine  art-gallery,  and  frequent  talks  on  art  are 
open  to  the  students.  Most  colleges,  too,  provide  lectures  by 
specialists  on  music,  art,  and  literature.  Much  that  is  beauti¬ 
ful  in  life  comes  thus  naturally  into  the  life  of  the  college 
girl.  She  is,  moreover,  surrounded  by  refined  and  cultured 
men  and  women,  in  spite,  again,  of  the  indictment,  “  Lack  of 
social  training.”  If  Miss  Willard’s  friend  has  time  for  a  tour 
of  the  colleges,  he  can  find  no  better  refutation  of  his  theory 
that  they  lack  refining  influences  than  the  students  them¬ 
selves.  The  difference  between  the  senior  and  freshman  class 
of  any  college  is  one  of  the  marked  features  of  college  life  ; 
that  in  women’s  colleges  this  difference  is  chiefly  in  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  greater  womanliness  and  refinement  is  perhaps 
sufficient  evidence  of  the  influences  at  work.  Some  of  the 
finest  women  I  have  known  have  been  members  of  college 
faculties.  That  their  very  fineness  is  an  indirect  argument 
for  celibacy,  as  suggested,  is  perhaps  true.  But  why 
assume,  a  priori,  that  this  is  necessarily  a  misfortune  ? 
When  I  was  a  freshman  in  college,  I  remember,  the  wife  of 
the  president  called  individually  on  each  member  of  the 
freshman  class.  I  should  not  like  to  be  cited  as  maintain¬ 
ing  that  a  ten-minutes  social  call,  even  from  the  wife  of  a 
college  president,  would  leaven  the  four  years  of  college  life. 
But  the  college  that  can  thus  take  thought  for  its  freshmen 
is  not  likely  to  neglect  entirely  the  social  graces  of  life. 
Using  the  word  social  ’in  its  broader  sense,  if  the  colleges 
for  women  fail  to  give  their  students  an  interest  in  the  prob¬ 
lems  of  humanity,  as  asserted,  is  it  not  a  little  singular  that 
one  of  the  most  effective  philanthropic  movements  of  the  day 
should  be  known  as  the  College  Settlement } 

Jennette  Barbour  Perry;  The  Critic,  Sept,  ii,  1897. 

Now  let  us  consider  the  prospect.  If  the  South  becomes  a 
slave  empire,  what  relation  will  it  have  to  you  as  a  cus¬ 
tomer  ?  It  would  be  an  empire  of  twelve  millions  of  people. 
Now,  of  these,  eight  millions  are  white  and  four  millions 
black.  Consider  that  one  third  of  the  whole  are  the  miser¬ 
ably  poor,  unbuying  blacks.  You  do  not  manufacture  much 
for  them.  You  have  not  got  machinery  coarse  enough. 
Your  labor  is  too  skilled  by  far  to  manufacture  bagging 


APPENDIX  D. 


191 

and  linsey-woolsey.  One  other  third  consists  of  a  poor, 
unskilled,  degraded  white  population ;  and  the  remaining 
one-third,  which  is  a  large  allowance,  we  will  say  intelligent 
and  rich. 

Now  here  are  twelve  millions  of  people,  and  only  one-third 
of  them  are  customers  that  can  afford  to  buy  the  kind  of 
goods  you  bring  to  market.  Two-thirds  of  the  population  of 
the  Southern  States  to-day  are  non-purchasers  of  English 
goods.  Now  you  must  recollect  another  fact — namely,  that 
this  is  going  on  clear  through  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  ;  and  if 
by  sympathy  or  help  you  establish  a  slave  empire,  you  saga¬ 
cious  Britons  are  busy  in  favoring  the  establishment  of  an 
empire  from  ocean  to  ocean  that  would  have  the  fewest  cus¬ 
tomers  and  the  largest  non-buying  population. 

Beecher :  Liverpool  Speech, 

Many  distinguished  Englishmen  have  had  some  favorite 
physical  amusement  that  we  associate  with  their  names.  It 
is  almost  a  part  of  an  Englishman’s  nature  to  select  a  phys¬ 
ical  pursuit  and  make  it  especially  his  own.  His  countrymen 
like  him  better  for  having  a  taste  of  this  kind.  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone's  practiced  skill  in  tree-felling  is  a  help  to  his  popu¬ 
larity.  The  readers  of  Wordsworth,  Scott,  and  Byron  all 
remember  that  the  first  was  a  pedestrian,  the  second  a  keen 
sportsman,  and  the  third  the  best  swimmer  of  his  time.  The 
readers  of  Keats  are  sorry  for  the  ill-health  that  spoiled  the 
latter  years  of  his  short  life,  but  they  remember  with  satisfac¬ 
tion  that  the  ethereal  poet  was  once  muscular  enough  to  ad¬ 
minister  “  a  severe  drubbing  to  a  butcher  whom  he  caught 
beating  a  little  boy,  to  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  a  crowd 
of  bystanders.”  Shelley’s  name  is  associated  forever  with  his 
love  of  boating  and  its  disastrous  ending.  In  our  own  day, 
when  we  learn  something  about  the  private  life  of  our  cele¬ 
brated  contemporaries,  we  have  a  satisfaction  in  knowing 
that  they  enjoyed  some  physical  recreation  ;  as,  for  example, 
that  Tyndall  is  a  mountaineer,  Millais  a  grouse-shooter,  John 
Bright  a  salmon-fisher ;  and  it  is  characteristic  of  the  inveter¬ 
acy  of  English  physical  habits  that  Mr.  Fawcett  should  have 
gone  on  riding  and  skating  after  he  was  blind,  and  that  An¬ 
thony  Trollope  was  still  passionately  fond  of  fox-hunting 
when  he  was  old  and  heavy  and  could  hardly  see.  The 
English  have  such  a  respect  for  physical  energy  that  they 
still  remember  with  pleasure  how  Palmerston  hunted  in  his 
old  age,  and  how,  almost  to  the  last,  he  would  go  down  to 
Epsom  on  horseback.  There  was  a  little  difficulty  about 


192 


APPENDIX  D. 


getting  him  into  the  saddle,  but,  once  there,  he  was  safe  till 
the  end  of  his  journey. 

Hamerton  :  French  and  English,  p.  2. 

Examination — thorough,  searching  examination — is  an  in¬ 
dispensable  accompaniment  of  teaching;  but  lam  almost 
inclined  to  commit  myself  to  the  very  heterodox  proposition 
that  it  is  a  necessary  evil.  I  am  a  very  old  examiner,  having 
for  some  twenty  years  past  been  occupied  with  examinations 
on  a  considerable  scale,  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men, 
and  women  too,  from  the  boys  and  girls  of  elementary 
schools  to  the  candidates  for  honours  and  fellowships  in  the 
universities.  I  will  not  say  that  in  this  case,  as  in  so  many 
others,  the  adage  that  familiarity  breeds  contempt,  holds 
good  ;  but  my  admiration  for  the  existing  system  of  examina¬ 
tion  and  its  products  does  not  wax  warmer  as  I  see  more  of 
it.  Examination,  like  fire,  is  a  good  servant,  but  a  bad  mas¬ 
ter  ;  and  there  seems  to  me  to  be  some  danger  of  its  becom¬ 
ing  our  master.  I  by  no  means  stand  alone  in  this  opinion. 
Experienced  friends  of  mine  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  stu¬ 
dents  whose  career  they  watch  appear  to  them  to  become  de¬ 
teriorated  by  the  constant  effort  to  pass  this  or  that  examina¬ 
tion,  just  as  we  hear  of  men’s  brains  becoming  affected  by  the 
daily  necessity  of  catching  a  train.  They  work  to  pass,  not 
to  know,  and  outraged  science  takes  her  revenge.  They  do 
pass,  and  they  don’t  know.  I  have  passed  sundry  examina¬ 
tions  in  my  time,  not  without  credit,  and  I  confess  I  am 
ashamed  to  think  how  very  little  real  knowledge  underlay 
the  torrent  of  stuff  which  I  was  able  to  pour  out  on  paper. 
In  fact,  that  which  examination,  as  ordinarily  conducted, 
tests,  is  simply  a  man’s  power  of  work  under  stimulus,  and 
his  capacity  for  rapidly  and  clearly  producing  that  which,  for 
the  time,  he  has  got  into  his  mind.  Now,  these  faculties  are 
by  no  means  to  be  despised.  They  are  of  great  value  in 
practical  life,  and  are  the  making  of  many  an  advocate,  and 
of  many  a  so-called  statesman.  But  in  the  pursuit  of  truth, 
scientific  or  other,  they  count  for  very  little,  unless  they  are 
supplemented  by  that  long-continued,  patient  “intending  of 
the  mind,”  as  Newton  phrased  it,  which  makes  very  little  show 
in  examinations.  I  imagine  that  an  examiner  who  knows  his 
students  personally  must  not  unfrequently  have  found  him¬ 
self  in  the  position  of  finding  A’s  paper  better  than  B’s, 
though  his  own  judgment  tells  him  quite  clearly  that  B  is 
the  man  who  has  the  larger  share  of  genuine  capacity. 

Huxley:  Science  and  Culture. 


APPENDIX  D. 


193 


It  has  become  fashionable  of  late  to  relate  the  small  weak¬ 
nesses,  and,  in  some  instances,  the  large,  as  seen  in  conspicu¬ 
ous  characters.  Parton  has  given  us  the  unfavorable  side  of 
Hamilton  ;  Burr  has  been  a  particular  mark  to  aim  at ;  Wash¬ 
ington  has  not  escaped,  and  we  are  now  to  have  such  a  por¬ 
traiture  of  Franklin. 


It  is  a  fact  of  common  experience  in  this  country  that  a 
switchmen’s  strike  is  the  ugliest  of  all  strikes,  and  the  one 
most  difficult  to  deal  with.  The  Buffalo  strike  has  been  in 
keeping  with  all  that  we  know  about  these  affairs.  The  New 
York  Central  switchmen  “went  out,”  not  because  of  any 
grievance  of  their  own,  but  because  the  others  went  out.  The 
Buffalo  and  Pittsburgh  men  struck,  and  the  company  acceded 
to  their  demands,  but  they  refused  to  go  to  work  until  the 
Erie  and  Lehigh  Valley  companies  should  yield  to  their  men. 
All  this  would  be  endurable  if  the  men  would  go  about  their 
business  and  leave  other  people  and  other  people’s  property 
alone.  But  this  they  will  not  do.  No  sooner  do  they  “  go 
out  ”  than  they  organize  themselves  as  brigands,  and  proceed 
to  burn  and  wreck  and  kill  and  maim  wherever  an  attempt  is 
made  to  operate  the  roads  that  they  have  abandoned.  They 
must  be  put  down,  they  must  be  made  to  suffer  the  conse¬ 
quences  of  their  riotous  acts ;  but  that  ought  not  to  be  the 
end  of  the  affair.  These  railroad  interruptions  ought  to  be 
made  impossible.  So  many  interests  are  affected  by  a  stop¬ 
page  of  traffic  that  the  State  ought  to  intervene  in  some  ef¬ 
fectual  way  to  insure  the  continuous  and  regular  movement 
of  trains.  The  Railroad  Commissioners  of  this  State  pointed 
out  the  need  of  such  legislation  several  years  ago,  and  showed 
the  equity  as  well  as  the  necessity  of  it.  Of  course,  men  can¬ 
not  be  compelled  to  work  on  railways  more  than  in  factories 
against  their  will,  but  they  can  be,  and  should  be,  required  to 
give  reasonable  notice  of  their  intention  to  quit ;  so  that  their 
places  may  be  filled  and  the  movement  of  traffic  continued. 
The  employers  should  be  equally  required  to  give  notice  of 
intention  to  “  lay  off  ”  any  hands  in  their  employ.  Railway 
and  telegraphic  service  should  be  made  subject  to  army  disci¬ 
pline,  the  obligations  being  mutual  between  employer  and 
employed.  A  fortiori  the  forcible  stoppage  of  trains  by 
hands  who  have  discharged  themselves  from  service  without 
a  moment’s  warning,  and  even  after  their  demands  have  been 
complied  with,  should  be  dealt  with  in  the  most  summary 
manner  with  all  the  power  of  the  State. — Nation,  55  :  135. 


194 


APPENDIX  D. 


The  Econofm'st  thinks  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  over¬ 
estimate  the  good  effect,  in  calming  the  panic,  of  telegraphic 
communication  with  Europe.  It  is  only  fair  to  admit,  of 
course,  that  there  is  a  drawback  at  times  in  the  “  echoing- 
power  ”  of  the  cable,  each  money  market  being  troubled  by 
bad  news  of  the  other,  and  the  bad  news  tending  to  accumu¬ 
late  ;  but  the  telegraph  works  against  panics  in  two  important 
ways.  It  has,  in  the  first  place,  materially  shortened  the 
time  within  which  assistance  can  be  rendered.  The  failure 
of  Jay,  Cooke  &  Co.  was  almost  immediately  followed  by  the 
shipment  of  gold  from  Europe.  But,  in  the  second  place, 
the  shipment  of  gold  has  an  effect  before  it  arrives,  because 
the  telegraph  announces  it,  and  the  mere  knowledge  that 
gold  is  on  the  way  is  likely  to  allay  panic  and  revive  credit. 
In  1857  the  crisis  broke  out  about  the  end  of  September,  but 
the  news  did  not  reach  England  till  the  middle  of  October, 
and  this  country  had  a  whole  month  to  live  without  re¬ 
ceiving  help,  or  knowing  of  its  probable  arrival. 

Natiofi,  17  :  265. 

No  body  can  be  healthful  without  exercise,  neither  natural 
body  nor  politic ;  and  certainly  to  a  kingdom  or  estate,  a  just 
and  honorable  war  is  the  true  exercise.  A  civil  war,  indeed, 
is  like  the  heat  of  a  fever,  but  a  foreign  war  is  like  the  heat 
of  exercise  and  serveth  to  keep  the  body  in  health. — Bacon  : 
Civil  and  Moral  Essays,  p.  207. 

Chief  Justice  Morse  of  the  Michigan  Supreme  Court, 
whom  the  Democrats  of  that  State  have  nominated  for 
Governor,  is  a  man  well  qualified  for  an  executive  position, 
but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  it  was  good  policy  for  the 
party  to  take  its  candidate  from  the  bench.  The  Constitu¬ 
tion  of  the  State  provides  that  no  judge  of  the  Circuit  Court 
shall  be  eligible  to  any  other  than  a  judicial  office  during  the 
term  for  which  he  is  elected,  and  for  one  year  thereafter,  and 
that  all  votes  given  for  such  judge  for  any  such  (inhibited) 
office  or  appointment,  whether  by  the  Legislature  or  the 
people,  shall  be  void.  No  mention  is  made  of  judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  but  of  course  every  argument  which  applies 
to  the  lower  court  has  equal  weight  in  the  case  of  the  higher; 
and  while  there  is  no  legal  prohibition  of  Mr.  Morse’s  can¬ 
didature,  it  is  morally  forbidden  by  the  plain  intent  of  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution.  The  feeling  against  going  to 
the  bench  after  a  nominee  for  a  non-judicial  position  is  very 


APPENDIX  D. 


195 


strong  in  this  country,  and  seems  to  be  growing  stronger. 
It  is  not  wise  for  a  party  to  fly  in  the  face  of  it. 

Nation,  55  :  136. 

A  professional  man  is  scarcely  equipped  and  started  in  his 
profession  before  he  is  thirty ;  a  business  man,  if  he  is  on  the 
road  to  success,  is  much  nearer  prosperity  at  thirty-five  than 
at  twenty-five,  and  it  is  therefore  wise  for  these  men  not  to 
marry  in  the  twenties.  But  this  does  not  apply  to  the  work¬ 
ing  man.  In  many  trades  he  is  laid  upon  the  shelf  at  thirty- 
five,  and  in  nearly  all  trades  he  receives  the  largest  wages  of 
his  life  between  twenty  and  thirty.  If  the  young  workingman 
has  all  his  wages  too  long  to  himself  he  will  probably  estab¬ 
lish  habits  of  personal  comfort  which  he  cannot  keep  up  when 
he  has  to  divide  with  a  family — habits  which,  perhaps,  he 
can  never  overcome. — J  ane  Addams  :  The  Subtle  Problems 
of  Charity^  Atlantic  Monthly,  83  ;  170. 

By  midsummer  we  often  find  ourselves  scarcely  noticing 
the  leaves,  unless  there  is  about  them  some  novel  feature 
that  strikes  our  attention,  such  as  an  added  glow  of  freshness 
from  dew  or  rain,  a  pleasant  noise  from  their  rustling  in  the 
wind,  or  the  tossing  of  the  branches  in  a  storm.  After  a 
change  of  boarding  place,  persons  often  think  the  food  at  a 
hotel  is  unusually  good  ;  but  the  bill  of  fare  varies  little  from 
day  to  day,  and  finally  the  viands  seem  so  monotonous  that 
but  slight  pleasure  is  experienced  in  eating.  Druggists  say 
that  they  often  sell  a  great  deal  of  soda  water  in  the  spring 
before  it  is  very  warm.  This  drink  then  seems  unusually 
good,  because  none  has  been  tasted  for  a  long  while.  They 
allow  the  boys  who  tend  the  fountain  to  drink  all  they 
choose.  For  the  first  few  days  the  boys  consume  a  great 
deal,  but  they  become  less  and  less  fond  of  it. — Halleck  : 
Education  of  the  Central  Nervous  Systefn,  p.  248. 

“  Thinking  freely  of  religion  may  be  involuntary  with  this 
gentleman ;  so  that  allowing  his  sentiments  to  be  wrong,  yet 
as  he  is  purely  passive  in  his  assent,  he  is  no  more  to  be 
blamed  for  his  errors  than  the  governor  of  a  city  without 
walls  for  the  shelter  he  is  obliged  to  afford  an  invading 
enemy.” 

“True,  my  son,”  cried  I,  “but  if  the  governor  invites  the 
enemy  there  he  is  justly  culpable.  And  such  is  always  the 
case  with  those  who  embrace  error.” — Goldsmith  :  Vicar  of 
Wakefield. 


196 


APPENDIX  D. 


What  do  we  know  about  this  characteristic  smell  of  the 
soil  ?  Can  we  regard  it  as  the  mere  attribute  of  the  soil  as  a 
simple  substance,  such  an  attribute  as  is,  for  instance,  the 
peculiar  smell  of  leather,  or  the  odor  of  india-rubber?  or  can 
we  go  deeper  and  find  that  it  is  really  an  expression  of  com¬ 
plexity  below  ? 

Strangely  enough  this  is  the  case,  for  the  smell  of  damp 
earth  is  one  of  the  latest  sign-posts  we  have  found  which  lead 
us  into  a  world  which,  until  recently,  was  altogether  beyond 
our  ken.  It  points  us  to  the  presence,  in  the  ground  beneath 
us,  of  large  numbers  of  tiniest  organisms,  and  not  merely  to 
their  presence  only,  but  to  their  activity  and  life,  and  reveals 
quite  a  new  phase  of  this  activity.  A  handful  of  loose  earth 
picked  up  in  a  field  by  the  hedgerow,  or  from  a  garden,  no 
longer  represents  to  us  a  mere  conglomeration  of  particles  of 
inorganic  mineral  matter,  “simply  that  and  nothing  more”; 
we  realize  now  that  it  is  the  home  of  myriads  of  the  smallest 
possible  members  of  the  great  kingdom  of  plants,  who  are,  in 
particular,  members  of  the  fungus  family  in  that  kingdom — 
plants  so  excessively  minute  that  their  very  existence  was 
undreamt  of  until  a  few  years  ago. 

But  up  to  the  present  the  fresh  smell  of  the  earth,  the 
smell  peculiar  to  it,  has  not  been  in  any  way  associated  with 
these  energetic  organisms,  and  it  is  quite  a  new  revelation  to 
find  that  it  is  a  direct  outcome  of  their  activity.  Among  the 
many  bacteria  which  inhabit  the  soil,  a  new  one,  hitherto 
unknown,  has  been  just  recently  isolated  and  watched.  It 
lives,  as  is  usual  with  them,  massed  into  colonies,  which  have 
a  chalky-white  appearance,  and  as  it  develops  and  increases 
in  numbers  it  manifests  itself  by  the  familiar  smell  of  damp 
earth ;  hence  the  name  that  has  been  given  it — Cladothrix 
odor  if  era.  Taken  singly  it  is  a  colorless,  thread-like  body, 
which  increases  numerically  by  continuous  subdivisions  into 
two  in  the  direction  of  its  length.  It  derives  its  nutriment 
from  substances  in  the  soil,  which  either  are,  or  have  been, 
touched  by  the  subtle  influence  of  life,  and  in  the  processes 
of  growth  and  development  it  evolves  from  these  materials  a 
compound  whose  volatilizing  gives  the  odor  in  question. 
This  compound  has  not  yet  been  fully  examined  ;  it  is  not 
named,  nor  have  all  its  properties  been  satisfactorily  eluci¬ 
dated,  but  two  facts  concerning  it  stand  out  clearly.  One  is 
that  it  is  the  true  origin  of  the  smell  that  we  have  hitherto 
attributed  to  earth  simply ;  and  the  other,  that  it  changes 
into  vapor  under  the  same  conditions  as  water  does.  There¬ 
fore,  when  the  sun,  shining  after  the  rain,  draws  up  the  water 


j4PPENDIX  D, 


197 


from  the  earth  in  vapor  form,  it  draws  up,  too,  the  odorous 
atoms  of  this  newly  found  compound  ;  and  these  atoms, 
floating  in  the  air,  strike  on  our  olfactory  nerves,  and  it  is 
then  we  exclaim  so  often,  “  How  fresh  the  earth  smells  after 
the  rain !  ” 

The  moisture,  to  a  certain  extent,  is  a  necessary  condition 
of  the  active  work  of  these  bacteria,  yet  the  chief  reason  why 
the  earthy  smell  should  be  specially  noticeable  after  the  rain 
is  probably  because  this  compound  has  been  accumulating  in 
the  soil  during  the  wet  period.  We  only  smell  substances 
when  they  are  in  vapor  form,  and  since  the  compound  under 
consideration  has  precisely  the  same  properties  in  this  respect 
as  water,  it  will  only  assume  gaseous  form  when  the  rain 
ceases.  The  bacteria  have,  however,  been  hard  at  work  all 
the  time,  and  when  the  sun  shines  and  “  drying  ”  begins, 
then  the  accumulated  stores  commence  their  transformation 
into  vapor,  and  the  strong  smell  strikes  upon  our  senses.  For 
the  same  reason  we  notice  a  similar  sort  of  smell,  though  in 
a  lesser  degree,  from  freshly  turned  earth.  This  is  more 
moist  than  the  earth  at  the  surface,  and  hence,  on  exposing 
it,  evaporation  immediately  begins,  which  quickly  makes 
itself  known  to  us  through  our  olfactory  nerves. 

It  may  also  have  been  remarked  that  this  particular  odor 
is  always  stronger  after  a  warm  day  than  after  a  cold  one,  and 
is  much  more  noticeable  in  summer  than  in  winter.  This  is 
because  moderate  warmth  is  highly  conducive  to  the  greater 
increase  of  these  organisms,  and,  in  fact,  in  the  summer  they 
are  present  in  far  larger  numbers  and  exhibit  greater  vitality 
than  in  the  winter,  when  they  are  often  more  or  less  quies¬ 
cent. 

Two  other  characteristics  of  Cladothrix  odor  if  era  are 
worthy  of  notice  as  showing  the  tenacity  with  which  it  clings 
to  life.  It  is  capable  of  withstanding  extremely  long  periods 
of  drought  without  injury  ;  its  development  may  be  com¬ 
pletely  arrested  (for  water  in  some  degree  is  a  necessity  with 
all  living  things,  from  highest  to  lowest),  but  its  vitality  re¬ 
mains  latent,  and  with  the  advent  of  water  comes  back 
renewed  activity.  But  besides  drought  it  is  pretty  well 
proof  against  poisons.  It  can  even  withstand  a  fairly  large 
dose  of  that  most  harmful  poison  to  the  vegetable  world,  cor¬ 
rosive  sublimate.  Hence  any  noxious  matter  introduced  into 
the  soil  would  harm  it  little  ultimately ;  the  utmost  it  could 
do  would  be  to  retard  it  for  a  time. 

This,  then,  is  the  history  of  the  smell  of  earth  as  scientists 
have  declared  it  unto  us,  and  its  recital  serves  to  further 


198 


/iPPENDIX  D, 


point  the  moral  that  the  most  obvious,  the  most  common¬ 
place  things  of  every-day  life — things  that  we  have  always 
taken  simply  for  granted  without  question  or  interest — may 
yet  have  a  story  hidden  beneath  them.  Like  sign-posts  in 
a  foreign  land,  they  may  be  speaking,  though  in  a  language 
not  always  comprehended  by  us,  of  most  fascinating  regions, 
regions  we  may  altogether  miss  to  our  great  loss,  if  we 
neglect  ignorantly  the  directions,  instead  of  learning  to  com¬ 
prehend  them.  G.  C.  Nuttall:  K7iowUdge^  Feb.  1899. 

The  lioness  nurseth  her  whelps,  the  raven  cherisheth  her 
birds,  the  viper  her  brood,  and  shall  a  woman  cast  away  her 
babe  }  Lyly  :  Euphues, 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  was  shown  in  the  case  of  a 
gosling  which  was  reared  in  a  kitchen  away  from  water. 
After  several  months  it  was  taken  to  a  pond,  but  refused 
to  go  in.  When  .  .  .  thrown  in,  it  hurried  out,  like  a  hen, 
in  a  frightened  way.  The  desire  for  swimming  had  been 
suppressed.  ...  A  short  time  after  hatching,  the  clucking 
of  a  hen  will  develop  motor  reactions  which  cause  .  .  .  [the 
chicks]  to  follow  her.  If  .  .  .  [they]  are  kept  away  from  the 
hen  for  a  week,  the  clucking  never  calls  forth  the  usual  motor 
response,  but  they  will  then  follow  the  whistle  or  call  of  any 
person  to  which  they  have  been  accustomed  from  birth.  A 
puppy  brought  up  on  a  hard  floor  will  frequently  make  a 
feint  of  burying  a  bone,  but  as  the  early  environment  is  un¬ 
suitable  for  developing  the  instinct,  it  is  often  altogether 
abandoned,  although  the  grown  dog  may  be  allowed  to 
wander  at  will  where  the  earth  is  soft.  Darwin  found  that  a 
species  of  caterpillar  naturally  fond  of  the  leaves  of  a  cer¬ 
tain  kind  of  plant  would  soon  lose  its  liking  for  them,  if 
accustomed  at  birth  to  eat  a  different  leaf.  So  pronounced 
does  this  dislike  become  that  worms  have  been  known  to 
die  rather  than  eat  the  favorite  leaf  of  the  species,  if  they 
have  been  reared  on  different  food. — Halleck :  Educaiio7i  oj 
the  CeTitral  Nervous  SystetTi^  p.  245. 


APPENDIX  E. 


UNCLASSIFIED  PROPOSITIONS  FOR  ARGUMENT/ 


v/ 


I  Railroads  raise  the  level  of  general  intelligence. 

2.  Delays  are  dangerous. 

3.  A  protective  tariff  fosters  trusts. 

4.  American  men  are  wholly  absorbed  in  business. 

5.  Climatic  conditions  influence  national  character. 

6.  Women  are  illogical. 

7.  The  English  language  is  unmusical. 

8.  Letter-writing  is  in  general  a  waste  of  time. 

9.  The  moral  influence  of  the  Salvation  Army  justifies  its 
existence. 

10.  Indian  corn  ought  to  be  adopted  as  our  national  floral 
emblem. 

11.  The  health  of  college’  girls  improves  during  their 
course. 


12.  Constantine's  conversion  was  the  result  of  religious 
conviction. 

13.  Hamlet  was  insane. 

14.  Like  father,  like  son. 

15.  A  policy  of  imperialism  should  be  adopted  by  the 
United  States. 

16.  The  people  always  conquer. 

17.  In  novels  the  blonde  women  always  win  away  all  the 
happiness  from  the  dark  ones.  (Maggie’s  observation,  Mill 
on  the  Floss,  Bk.  V.,  ch.  iv.) 

18.  The  prices  of  staple  commodities  are  much  the  same 
in  every  part  of  the  civilized  world. 

19.  Women  should  receive  the  same  salaries  as  men  for 
the  same  work. 


*  The  student  should  be  required  to  determine  for  himself,  whether 
he  ultimately  writes  the  argument  or  not,  what  form  of  reasoning  is 
necessary  to  establish  each  of  these  conclusions. 

*  A  particular  college  may  be  specified. 


199 


200 


APPENDIX  E. 


20.  Students  in  college  should  help  to  frame  the  laws  by 
which  they  are  governed. 

21.  People  always  admire  in  others  the  qualities  which 
they  themselves  lack. 

22.  Friendships  between  men  are  stronger  than  those  be¬ 
tween  women. 

^^23.  All  college  courses  should  be  elective. 

24.  Mars  is  inhabited. 

25.  A  socialistic  order  of  society  will  remove  the  incentive 
to  labor. 

26.  Precocious  children  do  not  fulfill  their  early  promise. 

27.  Kindergarten  methods  do  injury  to  the  mind  of  the 
average  child. 

28.  Women’s  clubs  are  a  positive  influence  for  good  upon 
the  community. 

--  29.  All  art  is  an  expression  of  the  personality  of  the  artist. 

30.  The  expenditure  of  money  for  luxuries  is  morally  in¬ 
defensible. 

31.  All  so-called  “eras  of  prosperity”  in  the  United 
States  are  a  misfortune  to  the  laboring  man. 

32.  Every  tramp  ought  to  be  sent  to  prison  and  put  at 
hard  labor. 

33.  A  belief  in  immortality  is  reasonable. 

34.  Bicycle-riding  is  physically  beneficial  to  women. 

35.  A  college  education  crushes  out  originality. 

36.  College  graduates  fail  to  reach  literary  eminence. 

37.  Strikes  aid  the  cause  of  labor. 

38.  The  character  of  the  heroine  in  Meredith’s  Diana  of 
the  Crossivays  is  inconsistently  represented. 

39.  All  land  should  be  owned  by  the  national  government. 

40.  A  man  is  known  by  the  company  he  keeps. 

41.  Familiarity  breeds  contempt. 

42.  Railroads  make  little  profit  on  their  passenger  traffic. 

43.  A  protective  tariff  is  an  injury  to  the  farmer. 

44.  Bicycles  should  be  carried  free  by  the  railroads. 

yAS-  College  graduates  should  be  preferred  to  graduates 
of  state  normal  schools  as  public  school  teachers. 

46.  War  never  pays, 

47.  Students  at . ^  work  at  least . ^  Hours 

a  day. 

48.  The  students  at . *  keep  conscientiously  the 

rule  which . *. 

*  Name  school  or  college.  *  Specify  number  of  hours. 

2  Specify  the  rule. 


APPENDIX  E. 


201 


49.  The  office  of  poet-laureate  should  be  abolished. 

50.  Great  poets  are  always  good  men. 

51.  The  use  of  the  boycott  by  trades-unions  is  wrong. 

52.  Women  writers  lack  creative  power. 

53.  The  architecture  of  all  ancient  cities  reflects  the 
civilization  which  gave  rise  to  it. 

54.  The  education  of  girls  should  be  different  from  that  of 
boys. 

55.  Cheap  dress  materials  never  pay. 

56.  Alms  should  never  be  given  to  beggars  except  through 
a  regular  charitable  organization. 

57.  The  establishment  of  orphan  asylums  is  an  injury  to 
society. 

58.  Public  libraries,  museums,  and  art-galleries  should  be 
open  to  the  public  on  Sundays. 

59.  Colleges  should  be  situated  in  the  country. 

60.  Second  thoughts  are  best. 

61.  Presidential  candidates  who  stump  the  country  in 
their  own  behalf  are  always  defeated. 

62.  The  study  of  both  ancient  and  modern  languages  will 
some  day  be  relegated  to  the  preparatory  schools. 

63.  An  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Bible  is  essential  to 
literary  success. 

64.  Horses  will  become  extinct. 

65.  Basket-ball  is  a  dangerous  game. 

66.  Books  written  for  children  lack  fine  literary  quality. 

67.  Reading  newspapers  is  profitable. 

68.  Executions  should  be  secret. 

69.  Voting  should  be  compulsory. 

70.  For  the  average  student  a  large  college  has  greater 
educational  value  than  a  small  one. 

71.  Students  from  families  belonging  to  a  certain  religious 
denomination  should  attend  a  college  controlled  by  that  sect. 

72.  Reading  periodical  literature  is  a  waste  of  time. 

73.  The  short  skirt  will  ultimately  be  adopted  by  women 
for  all  street  wear. 

74.  Dormitory  life  at  college  is  unhealthful. 

75.  Lynching  is  sometimes  justifiable. 

■76.  Voters  should  always  support  the  regular  party  nom¬ 
inees. 

77.  Absolute  power  produces  a  despotic  spirit. 

78.  Valedictorians  are  not  conspicuously  successful  in 
later  life. 

79.  The  life  of  women  in  the  nineteenth  century  is  ex¬ 
tremely  complex. 


202 


APPENDIX  E. 


80.  Poverty  will  always  exist. 

81.  The  negro  will  sometime  be  the  intellectual  equal  of 
the  white. 

82.  Poetry  declines  as  science  advances. 

83.  “  Neither  shall  they  make  war  any  more.” 

84.  The  American  war  with  Spain  was  unjustifiable. 

85.  Heredity  is  a  force  stronger  than  environment  in  the 
determination  of  individual  character. 

86.  Children  should  not  be  led  to  believe  the  myth  of 
Santa  Claus. 

87.  All  colleges  will  ultimately  be  coeducational. 

88.  “  College  settlements  ”  do  more  harm  than  good. 

89.  English  will  be  the  universal  language. 

90.  Popular  hymns  have  a  deleterious  influence  on  the 
literary  taste  of  the  masses. 

91.  Character  is  indicated  by  the  hands.* 

92.  States  fall  not  by  the  sword  of  the  conqueror,  but  be¬ 
cause  of  internal  weakness. 

93.  All  great  movements  of  thought  are  reactionary. 

94.  The  church  of  the  future  will  be  institutional. 

95.  The  best  is  always  the  cheapest. 

96.  The  modern  churches  are  made  up  of  women. 

97.  Labor-saving  machinery  is  a  benefit  to  the  working  man. 

98.  Orderly  habits  save  time. 

99.  Lazy  people  take  the  most  pains. 

100.  Social  settlements  should  be  supported  by  the  city 
government. 

101.  Beowulf  v^a.s  written  by  one  person. 

102.  “  All  art  does  but  consist  in  the  removal  of  surplu¬ 
sage.”  (Pater,  Essay  on  Style.) 

103.  Our  pension  system  should  be  abolished. 

104.  Prison  labor  ought  not  to  be  brought  into  compe¬ 
tition  with  free  outside  labor. 

105.  The  President  of  the  United  States  should  be  elected 
for  six  years  and  be  ineligible  for  re-election. 

106.  Railroads  tend  to  make  prices  uniform  all  over  the 
world. 

107.  Undergraduate  students  should  not  devote  them¬ 
selves  to  a  single  line  of  study. 

108.  Sermons  should  be  limited  to  thirty  minutes  in 
length. 

109.  Browning’s  poems  are  without  musical  quality. 


*  Or  by  the  features,  gait,  dress,  handwriting,  etc. 


APPENDIX  E. 


203 


no.  Money  dishonestly  acquired  does  its  possessor  no 
good. 

111.  Christian  science  “ healing  ”  should  be  prohibited  by 
law. 

1 12.  Children  should  be  allowed  to  eat  all  the  candy  they 
want. 

1 1 3.  A  system  of  self-government  should  be  introduced 
into  primary  and  secondary  schools. 

1 14.  Under  existing  conditions,  the  abolition  by  all  civil¬ 
ized  nations  of  their  armies  and  navies  other  than  those 
required  for  the  maintenance  of  their  domestic  police  is 
feasible. 

1 1 5.  The  United  States  should  adopt  a  policy  of  colonial 
expansion. 

1 1 6.  George  Eliot's  minor  characters  are  more  distinctly 
drawn  than  are  her  heroes  and  heroines. 


APPENDIX  F. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The  bibliography  of  argumentation  is  as  yet  meager. 
Baker’s  Principles  of  Argumentation  was  first  in  the  field, 
followed  recently  by  MacEwan’s  Essentials  of  Argumentation, 
These  two  treatments  of  the  .subject  differ  widely  in  the  stress 
they  lay  upon  the  logical  substratum  of  argument,  Mr.  Baker 
taking  it  for  granted  and  Mr.  MacEwan  expounding  it  in 
detail.  Baker’s  Specimens  of  Argumentation  may  be  consid¬ 
ered  supplementary  to  the  Principles. 

To  these  books  must  be  added  the  contributions  made  by 
some  of  the  standard  treatises  on  rhetoric,  both  ancient  and 
modern.  We  find  a  large  part  of  Aristotle’s  and  Quintilian’s 
discussions  concerning  rhetoric  devoted  to  “  persuasion,”  in 
which  argument  was  regarded  as  a  factor  of  varying  impor¬ 
tance.  Campbell  and  Whately  perpetuate  this  proportion. 
The  modern  rhetoricians  as  a  class  devote  scant  space,  or 
none  at  all,  to  argumentation,  and  those  who  consider  it  have 
thrown  little  new  light  upon  its  problems. 

Books  of  logic  must  inevitably  be  consulted  by  the  student 
of  argumentation.  Of  these,  Jevons’  Elementary  Lessons  is 
perhaps  the  simplest  and  most  compact,  though  Bosanquet, 
Lotze  and  Fowler  dig  deeper.  Both  real  and  formal  logic,  it 
will  be  noticed,  are  represented  in  this  bibliography,  inas¬ 
much  as  both  contribute  to  a  conception  of  logic  as  the 
explicit  formulation  of  the  typical  modes  of  thought. 

One  treatise  of  an  anomalous  character  appears  in  the 
list — Cramer’s  Method  of  Darwin.  This  is  an  interesting 
popular  presentation  of  logical  principles  as  practically  ap¬ 
plied  in  scientific  investigation.  It  furnishes  some  excellent 
illustrative  material  for  a  course  in  argumentation. 


204 


APPENDIX  F. 


205 


Aristotle.  Rhetoric.  Welldon’s  tr.  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1886. 
Bain,  Alex.  English  Composition  and  Rhetoric,  Part  II.,  ch. 

IV.  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  N.  Y.,  1867. 

Bain,  Alex.  Logic.,  Inductive  a7id  Deductive.  N.  Y.,  1886. 
Baker,  Geo.  P.  Prmciples  of  Argume?itation.  Ginn  &  Co., 
1895. 

Baker,  Geo.  P.  Specimens  of  Modern  Argumentation.  Henry 
Holt  &  Co.,  1897. 

Bascom,  J.  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric,  pp.  63-94.  G.  P.  Put¬ 
nam’s  Sons,  1893. 

Bates,  Arlo.  Talks  on  Writing  English,  pp.  152-180. 

Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1897. 

Blair,  Hugh.  Rhetoric  and  Belles  Lettres,  Lecture  XXXII. 
Philadelphia. 

Bosanquet,  B.  Essentials  of  Logic.  London,  1895. 
Bosanquet,  B.  Logic,  2  vols.  Oxford,  1888. 

Bradley,  F.  H.  Principles  of  Logic.  London,  1883. 

Cairns,  W.  B.  Forms  of  Discourse,  pp.  227-292.  Ginn  & 
Co.,  1896. 

Campbell,  George.  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric,  Bk.  L,  chs.  v.-x. 
Harper  &  Bros.,  1858. 

Cramer,  F.  The  Method  of  Darwin.  A.  C.  McClure  &  Co., 
Chicago,  1896. 

Fowler,  Thos.  Logic,  Deductive  and  Inductive.  Clarendon 
Press,  Oxford,  1895. 

Genung,  J.  F.  Practical  Eleme7tts  of  Rhetoric,  pp.  407-446. 
Ginn  &  Co.,  1887. 

Hale,  E.  E.,  Jr.  Constructive  Rhetoric,  pp.  321-342.  Henry 
Holt  &  Co,,  1896. 

Hamilton,  Sir  W.  Lectures  on  Logic.  Ed.  by  Mansel  & 
Veitch,  Boston,  1866. 

Hart,  J.  M.  English  Compositioft,  pp.  103-124.  Eldridge  & 
Bro.,  Philadelphia,  1897. 

Hill,  A.  S.  Principles  of  Rhetoric,  pp.  327-400.  Harper  & 
Bros.,  1896. 

Jevons,  W.  S.  Eleme7itary  Lessons  in  Logic.  Macmillan  & 
Co.,  1895. 

Jevons,  W.  S.  Ele7ne7its  of  Logic.  N.  Y.,  1883. 

Jevons,  W.  S.  Prmciples  of  Science.  London,  1874. 

Lotze,  H.  Logic.  Tr.  by  B.  Bosanquet,  2  vols.  Oxford, 
1888. 

Lotze,  H.  Outlmes  of  Logic.  Tr.  and  Ed.  by  G.  T.  Ladd, 
Boston,  1887. 

MacEwan,  E,  J.  Esse7ttials  of  Argu77ientatio7i.  D.  C.  Heath 
&  Co.,  1898. 


2o6 


APPENDIX  F. 


Mansel,  H.  L.  Prolegovima  Logica,  an  Inquiry  into  the 
Psychological  Nature  of  Logical  Processes.  Boston, 
i860. 

Mill,  J.  S.  Syste7n  of  Logic.  N.  Y.,  1839. 

Minto,  W.  Logic,  Inductive  and  Deductive.  N.  Y.,  1895. 

Quintilian.  Distitutes  of  Oratory,  Bks.  III.-VII.  Watson’s 
tr.  London,  Geo.  Bell  &  Sons,  1891. 

Sidgwick,  Alfred.  Fallacies.  London,  Kegan  Paul,  Trench. 
Triibner  &  Co.,  Ltd.,  1890. 

Sidgwick,  Alfred.  The  Process  of  Argument.  A.  &  C.  Black, 
London,  1893. 

Sigwart,  C.  Logic.  Tr.  by  Helen  Dendy,  Muirhead’s 
Library  of  Philosophy,  2  vols.  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1895. 

Tompkins,  A.  The  Sciettce  of  Discourse,  pp.  1 37-1 70.  Ginn 
&  Co.,  1897. 

Venn,  J.  Syfnbolic  Logic.  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1881. 

Whately,  R.  Elements  of  Logic.  Sheldon  &  Co.,  N.  Y., 
1866. 

Whately,  R.  Elements  of  Rhetoric^  Part  I.  Sheldon  &  Co., 
N.  Y.,  1864. 


lEngUsb  IReabings 


Alden’s  Specimens  of  English  Verse. 

By  Raymond  M.  Adden,  Assistant  Professor  in  Leland  Stanford 
University,  xiv+459  pp.  i6mo.  $1.25. 

Arnold:  Prose  Selections. 

Edited  with  notes  and  an  introduction  by  Lewis  E.  Gates, 
sometime  Assistant  Professor  in  Harvard  College.  xci+  348  pp. 
i6mo.  Buckram,  $1.00.  Cloth,  90  cents. 

Baker’s  Specimens  of  Argumentation. 

Chosen  and  edited  by  George  P.  Baker,  Assistant  Professor  in 
Harvard  College.  i6mo.  186  pp.  50  cents. 

Baker’s  Specimens  of  Public  Exposition  and  Argumentation. 

By  George  P.  Baker,  Assistant  Professor  in  Harvard  Uni¬ 
versity,  assisted  by  H.  B.  Huntington,  Assistant  Professor  in 
Brown  University.  \In  preparation.^ 

Baldwin’s  Specimens  of  Prose  Description. 

Edited  with  introduction  and  notes  by  Charles  Sears  Bald¬ 
win,  Assistant  Professor  in  Yale  College.  1+  149  pp.  i6mo. 
50  cents. 

Brewster’s  Specimens  of  Prose  Narration. 

Chosen  and  edited  by  William  T.  Brewster,  Assistant  Professor 
in  Columbia  University.  xxxvii-|- 209  pp.  i6mo.  50  cents. 

Browning:  Selections. 

Lyrical  and  dramatic  poems.  With  the  essay  on  Browning  from 
E.  C.  Stedman’s  “  Victorian  Poets.”  Edited  by  Edward  T. 
Mason.  275  pp.  i6mo.  60  cents. 

Burke:  Selections. 

Chosen,  and  edited  with  a  full  introduction,  by  Bliss  Perry, 
editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  xxvi-t- 298  pp.  i6mo.  60 
cents. 

Burke:  On  Conciliation. 

Edited  with  introduction  and  notes  by  Daniel  V.  Thompson, 
Master  in  Dr.  Sachs’s  School.  xliv-|- 122  pp.  i6mo.  40  cents. 

Byron:  Selections. 

Edited  with  introduction  and  notes  by  F.  I.  Carpenter,  Assist¬ 
ant  Professor  in  the  University  of  Chicago,  lviii-l-412  pp. 
i6mo.  $1.00. 

Coleridge:  Prose  Selections. 

Selections  chosen,  and  edited  with  introduction  and  notes,  by 
Henry  A.  Beers,  Professor  in  Yale  University,  xxix-b  146  pp. 
i6mo.  50  cents. 

De  Quincey:  The  English  Mail  Coach  and  Joan  of  Arc. 

With  an  introduction  and  notes  by  James  Morgan  Hart, 
Professor  in  Cornell  University,  xxvi-i-138  pp.  i6nio.  50 
cents. 

vi  ’03 


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Dryden:  Essays  on  the  Drama. 

Edited  by  William  Strunk,  Jr.,  Assistant  Professor  in  Cornell 
University.  xxxviii+ i8o  pp.  i6mo.  50  cents. 

Ford:  The  Broken  Heart. 

With  introduction  and  notes  by  Clinton  Scollard,  sometime 
Professor  in  Hamilton  College.  i6mo.  xvi+  132  pp.  50  cents. 
Goldsmith:  Present  State  of  Polite  Learning. 

Edited  with  introduction  and  notes  by  J.  M.  Hart,  Professor  in 
Cornell  University.  [In  preparation.] 

Johnson:  Rasselas. 

With  an  introduction  and  notes  by  Oliver  Farrar  Emerson, 
Professor  in  Western  Reserve  University,  lv+179  pp.  With 
portrait.  i6mo.  50  cents. 

Lament’s  Specimens  of  Exposition. 

Selected  and  edited  by  Hammond  Lamont,  Managing  Editor  of 
theNEw  York  Evening  Post.  i6mo.  xxx+i8opp.  5ocents. 
Landor:  Selections  from  the  Imaginary  Conversations. 

Edited  by  Alphonso  G.  Newcomer,  Professor  in  Leland  Stan¬ 
ford  University.  lix+ 166  pp.  i6mo.  50  cents. 

Lewis’s  Specimens  of  the  Forms  of  Discourse. 

By  Edwin  Herbert  Lewis,  Associate  Professor  in  Lewis 
Institute,  Chicago,  viii  +  367  pp.  i6mo.  60  cents. 

Lyly:  Endymion. 

With  introduction  and  notes  by  George  P.  Baker,  Assistant 
Professor  in  Harvard  University.  exevi-b  109  pp.  i6mo. 
Buckram,  $1.25;  Cloth,  85  cents. 

Macaulay:  Essays  on  Milton  and  Addison. 

Edited  with  notes  by  James  Arthur  Tufts,  Professor  in  the 
Phillips  Exeter  Academy.  [In  press.] 

Macaulay  and  Carlyle:  Croker’s  Boswell’s  Johnson. 

With  notes  and  introduction  by  W.  Strunk,  Jr.,  Assistant 
Professor  in  Cornell  University.  xl+  192  pp.  i6mo.  50  cents. 
Marlowe :  Edward  II. 

With  notes  and  an  introductory  essay  by  Edward  T.  McLaugh¬ 
lin,  Professor  in  Yale  University.  xxi+i8opp.  i6mo.  50  cents. 
Milton:  Minor  English  Poems. 

With  an  introduction  and  notes  by  Martin  W.  Sampson,  Pro¬ 
fessor  in  Indiana  University.  li-[-345  pp.  i6mo.  60  cents. 
Nettleton:  Specimens  of  the  Short  Story. 

Selected  and  edited  by  George  H.  NettlETon,  Ph.D.,  Instruc¬ 
tor  in  Yale  University,  vii+229  pp.  i6mo.  50  cents. 
Newman:  Prose  Selections. 

Edited  with  introduction  and  notes  by  Lewis  E.  Gates,  some¬ 
time  Assistant  Professor  in  Harvard  University,  lxi-l-228  pjj 
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vi  ’03 


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Pater:  Prose  Selections. 

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Pope:  Selections. 

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Ruskin:  Sesame  and  Lilies. 

Edited  with  introduction  and  notes  by  Robert  K.  Root, 
Ph.D,,  Instructor  in  Yale  University,  xxviii+137  pp.  i6mo. 
50  cents. 

Shakespeare’s  Julius  Caesar. 

Edited  by  Herbert  E.  GrEEne,  Professor  in  the  Johns  Hop¬ 
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Shakespeare’s  Merchant  of  Venice. 

Edited  by  Thomas  M.  Parrott,  Professor  in  Princeton  Univer¬ 
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Swift:  Prose  Selections. 

Edited  by  Frederick  C.  Prescott,  Assistant  Professor  in 
Cornell  University.  xliii+ 229  pp.  i6mo.  60  cents. 

Tennyson:  The  Princess. 

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Thackeray:  English  Humourists. 

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80  cents. 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

CHICAGO 


NEW  VORK 

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